Life isn't Over
by AntiChri5
Summary: Max rejects her impossible choice and takes a third option, but life is neither as co-operative or unforgiving as she imagined. But with Sean Prescott unwilling to forgive the terrible fate of his son, Max and Chloe may need to unravel even more of the mysteries behind Arcadia Bay and her powers to keep the happiness they have earned. My take on the ever popular Hospital Ending.
1. Sacrifice

The camera shook in Max's white-knuckled grip as it printed out that damned photo of the butterfly. She had loved this picture, once. Been proud of it. Held it up as one of the few examples of her work which even her insecurities could not tear down. When Chloe had claimed it as a symbol of their reunion, she had been delighted. Somehow, her photo getting crumpled and creased in Chloe's back pocket as the punk sat on it felt even better then having it protected and admired in a gallery.

Now, it was an anchor holding her down. Dragging her back to one of the worst moments of a truly horrific week. She hated it, more than Nathan's gun or Jefferson's syringe. Those were terrible things this fucking world forced on her. This was the one she chose.

Without this fucking photo she and Chloe could have moved on. Would have had no choice _but_ to move on. Now…...well, she had always wanted to be a hero. And she was about to save an entire town.

All she had to do was murder her partner.

Max bit her lip as Nathan entered the bathroom and began his entitled tirade. Any minute now Chloe would barge in and Max would have to listen as the most important person in her world died on the bathroom floor of a school she got expelled from, abandoned or betrayed by everyone she had ever loved.

Or maybe….

There was no chance, was there? Chloe had to die. But why would the universe itself be so out for one girls blood? That Final Destination shit just made….no sense. Was it her rewind or Chloe's survival that led to The Storm?

All she had were half assed guesses made by teenagers over an insanely short time frame. No real information. No _facts_. Could she justify taking this risk?

Chloe barged into the room, all snark and snarl. The world biggest puppy, barking so hard to convince the world her bite was just as bad. And Max knew she had already made her choice.

It was just a maybe. But she would take it. In a fucking heartbeat. Maybe was all she needed. She would dive into this loophole and not look back. Maybe Chloe did need to die. Maybe preventing that would doom the thousand odd souls of Arcadia Bay. But maybe not.

"You don't know who I am or who the fuck you're messing around with!"

Either way, Max wouldn't be around to deal with it. Was that selfishness? Cowardice? No, she was giving up enough. No way could Arcadia Bay demand more of her.

"Don't EVER tell me what to do. I'm so SICK of people trying to control me!"

Getting out her phone, Max opened the camera app and started recording before setting her bag down against the last stall, wedging her phone between it and the stall where the camera would have a perfect view. If she wasn't around, she had to make sure there was more evidence. Chloe was exactly the kind of witness juries found reasons to ignore.

"Nobody would ever even *miss* your punk ass, would they?"

 _Guess that's my cue._

"I would."

Max stepped out from her hiding spot with a purpose she never would have managed five days ago. Or five minutes ago, depending on perspective. Back straight and eyes blazing, she stood her ground as Nathan whirled to face her in shock.

"WhotheFUCK! C-caulfield? Shut the fuck up and….and shut the fuck up!"

" _Max_?"

Max's heart stilled. The terror in Chloe's voice had been replaced by wonder. And a thin, trembling note of hope. That alone made this worth it.

 _Don't worry, Chloe. You aren't dying here. Not again. Never again._

"Whothefuck said YOU could talk? Just be a good bitch **and shut the fuck up**." Nathan trembled as he backed up to one of the stalls, gun swinging back and forth between Max and Chloe. The punk's eyes narrowed as she noticed Nathan's distraction, the shock of Max's sudden appearance giving her anger a chance to return.

Max couldn't let Chloe try anything. Nathan was too unstable; one aggressive move and he would pull the trigger. Just like the last few times. The photographer slowly reached out her left hand, not to rewind this time but to beckon her former best friend to her side.

Chloe scowled, shaking her head and Max grimaced. Her Chloe, the Chloe she had just abandoned on a stormy cliffside, would have done as she requested. But the trust just wasn't there yet. Her gesture did clue Nathan in to what a more stable gunman would have realized far sooner; hostages are a lot easier to keep an eye on when they aren't on opposite sides of the room.

"Go, bitch! Stand together."

Chloe clenched her jaw stubbornly, remaining rooted to the spot. Max didn't even try to keep the quaver out of her voice. "Chloe, _please_. Do what he says."

Thankfully, that was enough to get Chloe to play along. Max took a few steps forward to ensure they would be in view of the camera as Chloe made her way to Max's side, where the other girl wasted no time in taking her hand and entwining their fingers before attempting to reason with her disturbed classmate.

"Nathan, please, put down the gun."

"DON'T tell me what to do! Don't fucking EVER tell me what to do! Why don't you whores get that IM in control here? I have all the power in the world, right here, right now." He stroked the gun, an obscene smile coming to his lips.

"You think I am just gonna…what, give that up?" He laughed. "People think they can just push and push and FUCKING PUSH. Enough…fucking too much. I am done being used and manipulated! Now I have the power!"

 _Nathan, you demented wretch. You have no fucking idea what power is. The cost it carries._

"You want to be free, Nathan? No one using you or pushing you around? Go. Just turn around and fucking leave. Walk out that door and leave Arcadia Bay behind. America is a fucking big country. Find a town that has never even heard the name Prescott and build a new life. One that's _yours_ and no one else's!"

Nathan took a deep breath, running a trembling hand through his dishevelled hair. "What, you think you can _help me_? Fucking Super Max saves the day?" He laughs bitterly. "This isn't a fucking cartoon, Caulfield. Not even Rachel could - "

 _Oh, no._

With the mention of her lost angel, Chloe's hand started squeezing Max's so hard she thought she might never get feeling back. " _Rachel?_ What do you know about Rachel? _What the fuck did you do to Rachel?!_ "

Nathan stepped back, eyes darting around the room as panic twisted his features into a feral snarl. Max was moving before he pulled the trigger, before the gun even came up. She pushed Chloe back as she stepped in front of the outraged punk, her back pressed into Chloe's chest.

She felt it before she heard it. A surprisingly small impact, like an impossibly concentrated punch, pushing so deep she could feel it in her bones. She barely noticed the bang as she gasped in shock, staggering further back into Chloe's arms. Which should have made things okay, Chloe hugs usually did. But, as Chloe hugs went, this one was a serious disappointment. Definitely the third worst embrace they had shared.

Her partner was shaking and sobbing, grip weak as they sank down to the floor, Chloe's back to the wall and Max's against Chloe's chest. Chloe did the best she could, but the need to press her hand to Max's chest in order to stem the flow of wet warmth soaking through her shirt and spattering red onto the cheap blue tiles really ruined it. That was a real shame. It would have been nice to have one last hug before she died. Not that their farewell kiss at the lighthouse hadn't been wonderful of course.

Max just wanted…..more. So much more. An entire lifetime's worth. _Oh god, I don't want to die._ Chloe noticed her distress, her breath warm in Max's hair as she tried to comfort the girl who had just taken a bullet for her.

"God, Max, are you…..does it hurt?"

Max couldn't help but smile. Despite it all, she had one comfort. "I'm fine, Chloe. I was finally, _finally,_ there when you needed me."

Nathan was standing stock still, as if the gunshot had frozen him in time. He started muttering to himself "I-I-I didn't mean to, it-she…It wasn't my fault! Just like with Rachel, I never-n-never meant to kill her I just…..Jefferson he…"

Nathan started pacing back and forth, his whispered excuses became less and less audible until it was just indistinct muttering.

Something was wrong. Chloe was being too quiet. Nathan's outright confession that he had killed Rachel should have triggered enough rage to overcome her shock at Max being shot.

That was when Max finally felt it, the warmth of blood spreading across her back just like her front.

"No." She whimpered.

The bullet had gone right through her and into Chloe.

"No! I saved you! _I saved you!"_

Chloe huffed out a laugh that flecked her lips with blood. "Sorry, Super Max, but there is no way your scrawny ass is stopping a bullet. Too….…..too much time away from Joyce's cooking."

Max couldn't keep the tears from her face or her voice. "Im so sorry, Chloe. I…can't even fucking _die_ for you properly!"

Chloe's arms around her were so warm, her voice so loving. "Shhh, Max, you came back. That's all….all I ever wanted. Never stopped loving you. Fucking never."

" _Yessss_." Nathan hissed, all traces of guilt or regret gone as he watched the girls he had mortally wounded bare their souls to each other.

 _He sure got over the tormented thing quick._

"This is exactly what Jefferson..…..I need to capture this! So perfect."

The disturbed photographer, now fully over his earlier terror, ran to Max's bag, knocking her phone over as he rifled through it before returning with her camera.

 _Oh you piece of shit, don't you dare._

The familiar click and whirr of her camera taking and printing a picture almost seemed to be mocking her. Such a familiar sound, one that had brought her comfort for so long.

 _Fuck, You, Nathan._

Her feelings must have shown. Nathan scowled, stepping forward and kicking her in the face as snarled "Don't fuck up my shot, Max!"

Max had never even suspected it was possible to hate anything this much. She would have given almost anything to wipe the smug expression off his face. Fortunately, she didn't have to. Because that was when David Madsen burst in.

Letting out a strangled sound halfway between a gasp and a sob, the combat veteran wasted no time gawking at the horrific tableau before him. He was unarmed and had an entire room to cross, but Nathan lacked his mentors psychopathic poise. He fumbled with Max's camera, dropping it as he scrambled to get his gun up in time.

Madsen was on him before he had it halfway there. David lashed out, a single punch thrown with years of experience, decades of simmering anger and the newfound wrath of a father now terrified he would never get the chance to do better, slamming into the shooter's face with a heavy _THUD_ that somehow seemed louder then the earlier gunshot. Nathan twisted as he fell back into the stall, his head shattering the outer rim of the filthy toilet bowl as he went down.

David went to his knees beside the wounded girls, training the only thing keeping the tears from his eyes as he fell back into the basic battlefield medical care he had picked up. He wasted no time dealing with one of the only injuries he knew how to tend, even as he shouted for help.

For the rest of his life, he would be grateful that he didn't notice Nathan's unconscious form twitching behind him, the tiny amount of water in the toilet bowl his head had crashed it's way into sufficient to cover his mouth and nose. He didn't want to know whether or not he would have gone to the aid of the person who had shot his daughter, as the boy drowned in a toilet.

It was all too much. Max closed her eyes.

And tried very hard not to die.


	2. Awakening

Chloe Price sat on the bloody tiles, ignoring the paramedics trying to save her life as she watched her former best friend and current saviour carried out on a stretcher. It hurt a hell of a lot more then the bullet in her chest. And if there was one thing she had gotten to know in the last five years, it was pain.

The young punk looked down at what seemed to her to be an absolutely ridiculous amount of blood. Way too much to all be hers. Max's blood had mingled with her own as it spilled over her, soaking her clothes through. She could feel it, sticky and moist where it wasn't dry and crusty.

On her legs. Her thighs. Her belly. Her breasts, and all over the fresh wound between them.

It was hard to be too grossed out. The paramedics had given her something that put Frank's shit to shame.

She wondered if the steady flow pouring out of her chest had washed Max's blood away from her system, as her long lost friend nearly bled out on top of her, or if there had been too much and it had seeped into her open wound.

The drugs broke down what was left of her consciousness and with the blood of a time traveller staining her clothes and skin, seeping into her body and circulating within her system, Chloe dreamt.

She dreamt of storms and bullets. Of love ending in agony and decay, a shallow grave where she was supposed to be warm and safe. Of trains screeching down at her as an anchor rooted her to the spot. Of a tube in her throat and a chair that had become a prison. Of the trauma on a friend's face, put through hell because of Chloe's rage, Chloe's mistakes. Chloe dreamt of a lifetime of pain and fear packed into a few days.

But she also dreamed of a friend found. A bond reforged. Five years of resentment falling away in an instant. Trust earned through sacrifice after sacrifice, rewind after rewind. The warmth of a hand holding her steady as she offered the same, perfectly in sync with each step on the rails. A shark and otter basking in the blue glow together. The smell of chlorine and a dare that set hearts racing. The shocking, hesitant touch of inexperienced lips against her own. The steady love in warm blue eyes. Peace finally found in a gentle, freckled smile. The desperate passion of a last kiss, death and devastation raining down around them.

When Chloe woke in the sterile whiteness of a hospital room, she blinked the tears from her eyes and thought only of her partner in time. She turned to the tearstained face of her mother and asked a single question.

"Is Max alive?"

* * *

Max was alive. But not okay. "Still in surgery" was the answer she got, time after time. Apparently, Max needed a lot of fucking surgery. Heroism had it's price.

Joyce wiped the grime and grit from her face, doing her best to smile for her daughter.

"The Doctor's said that the…..the bullet didn't have enough force to damage your heart. After it chipped your rib it hit, but just couldn't….penetrate far enough."

Chloe glared at the wall to keep herself from tearing up again. If that bullet hadn't had one heroic hipster to work it's way through first…

Joyce could tell where her daughters thoughts were taking her.

"Chloe…After the accident, I spent so long blaming myself. I kept thinking if I hadn't called, if I had gone shopping some other time… It is so easy to fall into that mindset. And you were so lost without William, every time I looked at you….."

Joyce brushed another tear out of her eye before managing a shaky smile. "It took a lot to forgive-"

"If you're gonna tell me not to blame myself-"

"No, Chloe, I'm not. It took a lot to forgive myself and I…..pushed you. The closer I got to moving on the more I pressured you to as well. I'm sorry for that, sweetheart. I didn't let you grieve the way you needed to. You acted out a lot but….I handled things poorly. So you feel the way you need to feel. Let it pass through you, so you can heal. Just remember that I am here for you. And I love you."

Chloe couldn't keep the tears from her eyes this time. This was the most sincere exchange she had had with her mother since, fuck, since before Dad died. She was saved from having to figure out how she felt for long enough to make an equally sincere reply by a nurse bustling in to check on her.

While the woman poked and prodded and questioned, Chloe tried to get an update on Max's condition.

Only to be met with the same "still in surgery" she got earlier. She might have thrown a shoe at the poor nurse. Joyce's shoe.

The Caulfield's arrived before Max got out. Ryan and Vanessa, both broken in different ways over the shooting of their daughter.

Ryan strode in with his enormous beard bristling with rage, looking for someone to shout at, sue, or simply punch. Finding only medical professionals diligently working at keeping his little girl alive (and other sick and injured people) seemed to take something out of him. Like the need to avenge Max had been the only thing keeping him standing.

Vanessa drifted along in her husbands wake. Voice gentle and eyes teary, with a now permanent quiver on her lip.

Chloe wasn't sure how she felt about Max's folks. In her childhood they had been a second set of parents for her, as hers had been for Max. In her teenage years, they had been the assholes who took Max away. But, in her more stable moments, she had to admit that had she the means she would have gotten anyone and everyone she cared about out of this shithole town, no matter what they had to give up.

And now…..now she was the piece of shit that got their daughter shot.

Not that they seemed to see it that way.

Vanessa's hug was light and soft, knowing how easy it would be to hurt the injured punk. Max definitely got her gentle nature from her mother. Ryan skipped the hug entirely, having learned from years spent with his petite wife and daughter to avoid showing his affection physically when he was so worked up. Too many bearhugs that left the girls he doted on wincing. Max's strength, that core of iron which had allowed her to face down Nathan and Jefferson, to be there for Chloe when her own mind should have been shattering under the stress of time travel, that came from her father.

"How are you, sweetheart?"

"Fuck me, how is Max? These assholes won't tell me shit."

Vanessa frowned at her colourful language, as if she hadn't seen the blue hair and tattoos past the fact that it was Chloe wearing them.

Ryan was more amused then offended. At least until he called over a doctor to talk about Max, then any trace of humour was gone.

"The bullet only clipped Miss Caulfield's heart, but it still caused a lot of damage on the way through. She needed open heart surgery. They finished a while ago, but it is taking them a lot longer to get all of the splinters and shards of the rib which got hit."

Ryan ran a shaking hand through his beard, something she had only ever see him do at her father's funeral, and the Doctor continued.

"The rib is a total loss, I'm afraid. Too much damage, it has to be removed completely. At this point the real danger is those rib shards I mentioned. Small, sharp fragments floating freely among her internal organs." He grimaced. "Long term, they could present a serious problem if we don't get them all now."

 _Holy fuck. Imagine getting hit so hard one of your own fucking bones gets turned into life threatening shrapnel. I think I am fucking over guns._

Vanessa let out a tormented sob before turning to bury her face in her husband's shoulder. Joyce took hold of Chloe's hand and the punk was too grateful to pretend to be offended. Ryan and Vanessa found seats on the other side of Chloe before Ryan reached out to take her free hand, his wife still shaking in his arms.

Chloe wanted to stay like that for hours, but she was simply too weak. Before long she found reality drifting away from her as she slipped into sleep.

She awoke to find her partner in time in the bed beside her. Horribly weak and pale, but alive.


	3. REawakening

Max's triumphant return to the land of the living was a quiet, slow thing. No jolting out of bed with a big gasp. Just reality gradually reasserting itself. The unnatural stillness of her features finally disrupted as her brows drew in, her lips twitched. The steady rasp of her breathing interrupted with the occasional muttered word or gasp.

Her eyelids fluttered. Blinked. Opened.

Chloe watched her from the other bed in the hospital room they shared, Max's side overflowing with get well notes, flowers, balloons with obnoxiously up beat phrases on them and the occasional stuffed toy. There was not a trace of shame or guilt on her face at being caught watching Max sleep. In the unlikely event she ever felt any, there was no way it could have shown through the overwhelming joy at her awakening.

Chloe's smile was so bright in the moonlight filtering in through the thin curtains that Max couldn't help but answer it with one of her own.

"Watching people sleep, Chloe? Getting kind of creepy in your old age."

"Just making up for lost time. Haven't been able to see much of you for a while now." She tried to keep the lingering resentment from her voice, Max had done so much – proven her regret in countless ways, but five years of pain doesn't go away quickly. No matter how eager to forgive she was. Or how amazing the person seeking that forgiveness has been.

Judging from the look on Max's face she had been beyond unsuccessful.

"Chloe I…I'm so sorry. You deserved a better friend. I can't prove it, apart from the bullet I guess, but I have done **so much** to….. to get back to you. Be here for you. I know it's going to take time and maybe we will never get to go back to…. what we were."

Chloe scowled. Max didn't know. Of course, how the fuck could she?

Max thought that Chloe had forgotten everything, that she had gone back to the lost, angry creature Max had found on her return to Arcadia Bay. All those moments between them, lost. Chloe's expression was feeding that impression, she could see. Max had to be going out of her mind.

 _I have_ _ **got**_ _to fuck with her!_

"Max, it was so terrible when you left. I would spend all day just….staring at my phone. Waiting. Hoping. Praying."

 _Too much? Nah I'm still good for now._

"I would walk along the train rails, wishing I had someone to hold hands with. But without someone there to steady me I fell, again and again and again."

Max's eyes were wide, her bottom lip quivering.

"Every time I went swimming, I would lie back and float, wishing I had someone to splash around with….."

There were tears in Max's eyes now. _I can't believe she is buying this._

"I would go out on the roof and throw up my hands, shouting out "Why, WHY GOD WHY, why did Max, the most important person in the world, have to leave.""

Suspicion had finally crept onto Max's face, the tears that had been rolling across her cheeks had stopped and Max had tilted her head like a puppy trying to understand some baffling new human behaviour.

"I swore to myself, I would never forgive you. No matter how many times you saved my life, no matter how many different kinds of hell you put yourself through. Not even facing down a serial killer because of me could get me to forgive you. Not even tearing apart the fabric of time and remaking reality purely for me could ever make up for things."

Max's movements were angry as she wiped the tears away, but her smile couldn't be contained.

"Really, Chloe? Nothing could do it?"

"Well…maybe…."

"Maybe?"

"Maybe…if you were a _really_ good kisser."

"…. _kisser?!"_ Max squeaked.

" _And_ were willing to indulge my homoerotic dares."

It was good to see Max had enough blood to blush like that. Red as a tomato. Her tiny freckled tomato.

Max's tongue darted out, wetting her lips. "Dare _s_? Like, _plural_?"

Chloe smiled and licked her lips. It wasn't an unconscious little flick like Max. It was deliberate. Knowing. _Teasing._

Max shivered.

Whimpered.

It was such a deliberately lewd gesture. But it also reminded her of the way Chloe would lick the ice-cream off herself, after one of their binges. This was a level of cognitive dissonance she just wasn't ready for.

She was saved from having to respond by a nurse bursting into the room in a panic.

And that was how Max and Chloe learned that the equipment monitoring Max's heartbeat would alert the nurses if there were any…irregularities.

Max glared at Chloe as the nurse gave them what was halfway between a relieved explanation and a scolding about getting "needlessly excited". Chloe pasted on a contrite expression, but it died after a few seconds. She was just too fucking proud for it to last.

Max examined the various gifts and mementos left behind or sent by well wishers, casting about for something to throw at her intolerable friend. Maybe Victoria had given her a signed brick. That seemed like a Victoria thing to do.

Max's best friend shrugged. "About Eleven days, Maximum Nap Time."

Max's eyes widened in shock. "I have been out for eleven days? Are you cereal."

"Super cereal. Alight, important shit first. Life has been normal. No snow, dead birds, eclipse, two moons or fuckoff murderstorm. I don't know how or why, but we dodged the timefuckery."

"Jeffershit is where he belongs, behind fucking bars. Prickscott said some interesting things about him during his little rant, oh so thoughtfully captured on camera by your sweet self. Combined with Step-Soldier's files, the cops had more then enough to find a nice roomy cell for him. I heard they literally blew open the door to the creepy ass rapebunker, fucking explosives and everything. Wish I could have seen it. Wish they blew the whole fucking thing up. Needed fucking evidence I guess."

Chloe paused to take a breath and compose herself before continuing.

"Dark Room led them to….to Rachel, just like it did us." She reached out to pick up one of the very few cards she had received, labelled as being from "Rose and James Amber." Sighing, she put it back down and continued.

"Prickscott wound up exactly where he belonged, too." Nathan's fate brought back the smile that talking about Rachel had chased away.

Max raised an eyebrow.

"Jail?"

Chloe shook her head, her smile shifting from predatory to savagely cruel. "Remember Step-Soldier bursting in? He punched Prickscott so hard the little shit went…..well, where shit is _supposed_ to. Wound up with his head in the toilet, face down."

"In…..in the toilet?"

"In. The. Toilet. Fucker _drowned_ , Max. Goddamn shitwater in his mouth. Splashing around his tongue. Up his nose. Down his throat. In his _lungs._ Fucker was finally the same on the inside as he was on the outside. Soon as you are up to walking we are tracking down the poor bastard who did his autopsy. Gonna be the best fucking interrogation ever."

Max was reeling. She had started to hate Nathan, but she couldn't take joy in anyone suffering such a humiliating death. _Except maybe Jefferson,_ she admitted to herself.

But she couldn't bring herself to judge Chloe for the depth of her hate. After what he did to Rachel, to Chloe herself…..

It was actually rather comforting. Knowing hatred this pure would be waiting for anyone else who hurt her. Like Jefferson had.

Max forced her mind away from that particular agony.

"So, what about your memory? Im not complaining, but…"

Chloe grimaced. "Best I can tell it was your blood."

"Blood?"

"Yeah. We _were_ rubbing our gaping wounds together like some fucking gross parody of tribbing. Got a big dose of time traveller blood. Maybe that…triggered something? We need to figure out how this timefuckery works."

Max frowned. She agreed, but there was one thing she didn't understand. 'Tribbing?"

Max had learned, from hard won experience, to fear the familiar mischievous glee spreading across Chloe's face. It always ended with her angry or humiliated and, one time, hiding in the bushes together in their underwear while they both tried very hard not to giggle.

"Max. Max Max Max. Maxmaxmax. Oh Mild Max, I have so fucking much to teach you. So fucking much."

She reached forward, with her phone in her hand, "Here, look it up."

Max could feel the jaws of a trap closing around her. But she never could deny Chloe, could she? Especially when her partner got that playful gleam in her eyes. And, as awful as Max had felt while in the midst of the chaos Chloe caused, in the years that followed they wound up being some of her favourite memories.

Max accepted the phone and started typing, somewhat comforted when the word came up as a suggestion, as if it were something Chloe had searched for frequently. Chloe would have used incognito mode for anything _too_ bad, right? There was a video that had apparently, been viewed by this device seven times.

Max clicked it.

Max watched some of it.

Max winced. Cringed. Gasped. Rubbed her thighs together.

Startled by the surge that brought for from her body, she jumped, phone shooting from her hand to slide across the floor, stopping right before the door with the video still playing and the overly enthusiastic moans of the impressively uninhibited young women continued loud and clear.

Which was when the door opened and David took a step in, looking down in confusion. His eyes widened. Moustache bristled. Blushing, he stepped back. Closed the door. And walked away.

Chloe's laughter woke people up all across the floor and it wasn't long until Max joined in. They heaved in air as best they could, wounded bodied on fire from the exertion as they lost control completely. The doctor and nurses who rushed in were as irritated as they were concerned. And confused.

A male nurse watched the phone on the floor with a fascination that put the lie to any rumours about men in such a traditionally feminine profession being gay, and the scolding he received undid any composure Max and Chloe had been able to achieve.

The pain in Max's chest was getting worse, and she was pretty sure she had opened her stitches. When the irritated doctor gave them both a little something, she found herself slipping into a dreamless sleep. The broad smile on her freckled face remained.

And the doctors and nurses working that night got to add "Sedation due to Pornography Induced Hysteria" to the list of reasons they would trot out, years later, to explain why they would never again work in "Arcadia Fucking Bay".


	4. Family

"Chloe, we aren't naming him "Sir Friendzone."" Max said, hugging the teddy Warren had left her. With a cloth cape and armour, the little toy was clearly supposed to be a knight.

"Max. Cuddly Wuddly Accord of 2002. The terms are pretty clear. It's my turn to name one"

 _I never should have signed that thing. But Chloe had a glitter pen. How was I to resist?_

Still, it wasn't like she was about to let go of one of the old hallmarks of their neglected bond. Or forget Williams face as he helped with the terminology. And chose the name.

 _That man was a national treasure._

"Fine, but you should at least try to be more creative. You have given me three new nicknames already and we have barely been up for an hour. But the best you can do for my new friend is "Sir Friendzone?" Such disappoint."

 _I will just call him "Sir Friend" until the last part is forgotten. Mwahahaha._

That was how it had been since the two girls came out of their drugged stupor shortly before dawn. Falling into the familiar banter as they waited for it to be time for the inevitable heartfelt reunion.

Max checked her phone again, feeling guilty about her lack of progress at the mountain of messages and emails she had found waiting for her.

"Dude, leave it for later. If they actually give a fuck they will understand. If they don't and are just in it for the drama of being friends with the girl who got shot then they can just fuck off and die."

Max smiled. Chloe always seemed to know when she was drowning in her own bullshit. And never wasted time cutting through it. Except…

"Uhm, did _you_ just tell me not to pick up the phone and reach out?"

"….Crap. Too late to take it back?"

"Nnnnnope"

Chloe rolled her eyes. "Fine, fine. I'm…..trying to move past that shit, okay? And….sorry if I have been a bitch about it."

Max smiled and reached for the next stuffed toy, a walrus wearing a top hat.

"This guy is _definitely_ a Reginald…."

* * *

Vanessa was first through the door, face nearly as pale as her daughter's in the early morning light as she rushed to Max's side. Ryan wasn't far behind, giving Chloe a nod in greeting as Vanessa fussed over Max. Her parents settled down beside her, one on each side so they could both hold a hand.

Ryan cleared his throat. "Max, I couldn't be more proud of how brave you were, but please don't _ever_ do anything so stupid again. You came so close to dying, Max."

Vanessa nodded in agreement. "Honey, we don't know what we would do if….. If the worst were to happen."

"Guys, I'm not gonna make a habit of getting shot!"

"You fucking better not. Surprisingly tough to kick. And I thought smoking was a bad habit." Chloe interjected.

Max settled back with a smile. "Well, you are the expert." She closed her eyes as her mother reached out and started running a hand through her hair. That…..felt really nice actually. After all the shit she had been through lately, just lying back as her parents babied her had a certain appeal.

"Max, the Doctors were able to explain to us how you were doing physically, but mentally….they mentioned that after a trauma like this…. Well just look at poor Chloe" Ryan continued. "The shock turned her hair blue!"

Max huffed out a laugh at that, "I honestly don't know _how_ I am doing yet. I haven't really had the time to…..properly process everything, I guess. Um, I'll keep you guys updated?" She had always been able to tell her parents anything. She wondered if that extended to time travel. Or the Dark Room.

Just thinking of telling them about that sent a tense, unfamiliar feeling squirming through her chest.

"Uhm, excuse me, my hair is blue because it is _awesome_ , thank you very much." Exactly like when they were children, Chloe timed her obnoxiousness perfectly to provide Max an escape route.

Vanessa's hand paused in it's gentle caress. No doubt picturing what Max's old habit of following wherever Chloe led might mean for her style, given Chloe's punk makeover.

"Don't worry mama, I won't let her turn it blue." Her mother's eyes widened at having her mind read before her hand resumed stroking it's way through Max's chestnut locks.

"Pink is much more my colour…."

Max was still lying back with her eyes closed when Joyce arrived, although she had shifted to the other side of the bed so that she could lay half in her father's arms, her head resting on his shoulder. Joyce smiled at the comforting familiarity of a sight she hadn't witnessed in years. While Max wasn't nearly as much of a Daddy's Girl as her own daughter, she was still very close to her father and the big, bearded man had never been shy about showing affection physically.

"Well, isn't that a sight for sore eyes!"

Max smiled back at her, too comfortably content to bother with an actual answer.

"C'mon, mum, we can totally outhug the Caulfields." Chloe said as she held her hands out for a hug.

Joyce beamed even as her eyes boggled. Chloe hadn't been this affectionate in five years. She had accepted being called by her name, mostly out of the fear that trying to insist on something more maternal would result in one of Chloe's ever expanding list of derogatory nicknames. If Chloe ever called her even a quarter of the things she had labelled David…..the idea hurt too much to even entertain.

The concerned mother wasted no time bustling over to the punk's side, pulling her into a long, tender embrace. Whether this was a surge of nostalgia the Caulfields familial intimacy had brought out in her, her wounded daughter turning over a new leaf or simply the result of an act of god, she wasn't going to let it go to waste.

Chloe's usual smell of weed, men's deodorant, cigarettes and rust had been replaced by the antibacterial sterility of the hospital. It might have been less offensive, but it lacked…character. Joyce hoped that, at the least, whatever nurse had helped Chloe bathe had been pretty. Chloe deserved a little affection, and Lord knew she had little enough interest in men, these days.

It had been quite a shock, when she realized, but at least it had alleviated her main concern about Chloe's future; unexpected pregnancy.

Joyce cradled her daughter gently, hesitantly, like she would approach a frightened animal she was worried about scaring off. Chloe relaxed into the motherly affection, simply enjoying the overdue reconnection.

Then she turned to Max, smiled, and smugly stuck out her tongue. Max rolled her eyes.

"Chloe, don't try to turn _family hugs_ into a competition."

"Pffft, you think just because you have us outnumbered we aren't worth competing with? I see how it is"

 _And just like that,_ Joyce thought, _the magic is gone._

"Wowzers, Chloe, I…really wasn't expecting you to go there. But, since you brought it up…."

"Whatever, Max" Chloe smiled. "I have more ribs then you, so there!" It was delivered in such a smug tone that Max couldn't help but giggle, sending a flash of pain through her bullet wounds.

"Jeez Chlo, keep making me laugh like that and the Doctors are going to separate us."

"Just like the teachers back at school?"

"…Chloe, you were a year ahead of me. Of course you weren't supposed to be in the same classroom as me!"

"Those hallways all look the same. Easy to get turned around and wind up in the wrong room."

"You literally snuck in through the window a few times."

"Well, they started locking the door. What was I supposed to do? Mr's Walter didn't need to yell at me over it."

"Because you had faked diarrhoea to get out of school that day. You were supposed to be home with the "Apocalyptic Megashits", not sneaking me candy bars."

"You can't focus when you are hungry. I was helping. You still accepted the candy, Max."

"I was eleven. It was _candy._ I probably would have accepted it from a creepy man with a goatee, handing it out from some van or RV. _"_

"What does Frank have to do with this?"

Max snorted and rolled her eyes. "Uhm, Chlo?"

"…You want candy, don't you?"

Max sighed "Yeah…yeah I do."

Chloe's grin practically split her head. "Sure, Maximum Cavity Risk. Erm…where….."

Ryan laughed. "I saw a vending machine in the hall, let me show you." He reached forward to help her struggle out of bed.

As soon as the door closed behind them, he turned to her with a serious look in his eye and said "I have been meaning catch you alone to talk to you anyway."

Chloe gulped audibly.

* * *

"Im sorry!" Chloe blurted out after a tense half minute of silence.

Ryan quirked an eyebrow, mouth hidden behind his big, bushy beard.

"For….for getting Max shot."

Ryan snorted. "Chloe, that wasn't your fault."

"Fuck it isn't." She muttered, following him as he walked away.

"If I hadn't frozen up, if I had pushed Max out of the way –"

"Chloe, as soon as I heard the name "Prescott" I knew there was a chain of a hundred people responsible in one small way or another. Nathan being in that bathroom with that gun meant that a great many people failed in their duties. From his parents to Blackwell's staff to the local police. I watched that video. The boy was unhinged."

"Dude, Max's video didn't show everything. Before it started I provoked-"

"If it hadn't been you, it would have been someone else. Or traffic. Or stubbing his toe. Anything could have set him off, but only Nathan is responsible for his actions. Every day Max spent in the same building as him she was at risk, _all_ of the students were at risk. You two being the ones there when he finally snapped doesn't make you responsible."

Chloe couldn't find the words to explain. She knew it was all her fault. Everything Max had gone through in each timeline, when it wasn't directly because of her it was because of Max's attempts to do something for her. She had brought more pain and misery into Max's life then any one person should ever be expected to face.

The young punk was pathetically grateful that she couldn't explain herself to her best friends father. If he understood, for even five goddamn minutes, she would never get to see Max again. Instead she had the comforting warmth of his hand on her shoulder as he guided her through the hospital. It was so easy to lose herself in the paternal affection, to let go of the self loathing that had crept into every facet of her life.

"When I asked to talk, I actually wanted to thank you."

"Fucking _thank_ me?" This was too far. Far, far too far.

"Yes, you little dope, thank you. You and Max, the way you just…..the banter…No one in the world would think you were two girls reunited after a tense five years apart. It's like you were never separated at all. Max was _terrified_ of talking to you again. She was convinced you would hate her, for the way she wasn't there for you during such a hard time."

"Well, taking a bullet for someone is a pretty effective apology, man.

Ryan chuckled. "Im sure. But even the best apology in the world isn't much more then a foot in the door. On it's own, the best an apology can do is get a relationship out of trouble – it doesn't build a relationship, just stops one from deteriorating further."

Max's father smiled. "But you and Chloe have just picked up right where you left off. I can't imagine you have forgiven her entirely but with her so hurt and vulnerable, you aren't showing a hint of resentment. She needs her best friend back and you have been so great about giving her that."

Ryan stopped walking, reaching out to take her by the shoulders and turning Chloe to face him. "Whatever this godawful town has turned you into, whatever you have had to become to get through William's passing and Max's absence….The core of who you are, that overwhelming love for the people in your life that always defined you, made you the best friend my daughter could have asked for, a delight to have in our home and the centre of William's life…that's still who you are, Chloe Elizabeth Price." He pulled her into a hug she was grateful to accept so she could hide the tears in her eyes as she buried her face in his shoulder.

"W-what the fuck is it with you Caulfields? Punks don't cry…" Chloe muttered.

When they finally got to the vending machine, Ryan chuckled smugly as Chloe tapped away at the keypad.

"What's so fucking funny, dude? You are the one paying for this haul."

"You didn't even hesitate. Just picked out all of her favourites."

"Well…..Max is easy to please."

The doting father snorted. "No she isn't. She wants things to be wholemeal and free trade and organic and locally sourced and free range and all that hipster nonsense. She might love a greasy burger as much as any trucker, but her coffee costs five times what mine does."

"Okay, yeah, I just remember what she likes. I missed her, alright? It's not like I thought about her every day."

 _I totally did, didn't I?_

"She did, actually."

"Fucking what?"

"Think about you every day. At least for the first few years. She would spend a while staring at her phone, trying to figure out what to say, at least once a day."

"She could have said literally fucking anything. All I wanted was to hear from her."

"I know but she…don't tell her I told you this, okay? She had a lot of trouble fitting in, when we moved. The bullying never got _too_ bad, but it was bad enough, especially with her trying to deal with the move, Williams death and being separated from you. She withdrew from everyone, barely speaking at all some days. You had just lost your father, and Max was afraid if she called you it would turn into her complaining about school when you were going through so much more. She wanted to stand on her own, then be there to help you through things. But by the time she was ready to call, it had been so long that Max convinced herself you would hate her. And her insecurities just…..ate her alive from there."

"I never wanted some….some hero to save me. Just….just my best friend." Chloe glared at the vending machine.

"I know, Chloe. But she wanted to be your hero. So very badly."

Chloe blinked away tears. 'Well, she got there. Took her a while, but she got there. C'mon, hero needs her junk food."

Ryan and Chloe returned to a welcoming cheer of "Candy!" from the subject of their conversation.

In the quiet darkness of the hospital at night, it was easy to hear Max's whimpered "No."

Chloe sat upright so quickly her bullet wound sent a surge of pain strong enough that she let out a whimper of her own.

"Please…please don't…" Max shook her head back and forth, whatever nightmare she was trapped in continuing to torment her. Her elevated heart rate brought a nurse in to check on her, but as Chloe watched, Max threw out a hand, the nurse starting to run out backwards and the door slamming shut in front of (behind?) her.

Max was rewinding.

Chloe's mouth went dry, her hands starting to shake.

Max was rewinding.

That probably meant the weather was going to get apocalyptically homicidal.

Amazingly, that wasn't even the biggest issue.

Because Max was rewinding.

And it wasn't affecting Chloe.


	5. Fears

Max snuggled deeper into the pillow, enjoying the feeling of being more comfortable then she could remember being in…such a long time. Certainly before the bullet wound. Chloe had it easy, only having an entry wound. Max couldn't sleep on her back _or_ her front. But at last she had found a comfortable position.

She sighed contently, basking in the warmth, burrowing deeper, smiling as her nose brushed against a nipple, wondering about what to eat for breakfast.

 _Wait a minute. Why does my pillow have a nipple?_

Blinking her eyes open sleepily, Max blushed as she realized the "pillow" she had been snuggling into so happily was, in fact, one of Chloe's breasts.

"Morning, Mammary Max."

This wouldn't be nearly so embarrassing if Chloe wasn't so smug about it. Max lay stretched along Chloe's side, head on the other side of her chest from her bullet wound. One of Chloe's arms around her back with a hand running through her hair and Chloe grinning smugly down at her.

As…..intimate a position as this was, it kept Max off her wounds. Whenever she tried to sleep on her side, she would roll onto either her back or front. But with Chloe there to support her, she could just drift off. Maybe she should look into getting one of those body pillows. Warren probably knew where to get one. She just had to find a way to ask without him volunteering to _be_ her body pillow.

"Mornin' Chlo. Not that this isn't nice and cozy, but why are we snuggle buddies? I remember going to bed alone."

"You uhh….had a nightmare."

"Oh, I don't even remember. So you climbed in to comfort me? Awwww. Thanks Chloe!" Max gave Chloe a full body hug, wrapping her arms and legs around Chloe as she pressed her head into the punks shoulder.

"Uhh, yeah that…..yeah."

Chloe's voice was bright and cheerful. Most people wouldn't have given it a second thought, but Max wasn't most people. She had been there when Chloe told her very first lie, the most transparent fib in history about how the chocolate smeared on their hands and faces really had nothing to do with the cake that had gone missing from the Price's fridge. And that such an assumption was a truly grave insult, for which only a trip to the Lighthouse could suffice as an apology.

Chloe's voice was _too_ bright and cheerful.

"Chloe, what's up."

Chloe's hand tightened in her hair.

"Nothing, Max, just focus on…..focus on this." The young punk cradled her gently.

"Okay, now I am _really_ worried. What is happening, Chloe?"

"Promise not to freak out."

"No."

"What? You can't just say no!"

"Yes I can! People only say that when they know the other person is gonna freak! It's a pointless thing to say. Now tell me."

"Relax, Max. Don't wet the bed again."

"Goddamnit Chloe, that was one time! I was seven years old! You dared me to drink twelve cups of water and then spent all night telling me scary stories!"

"You still pissed on me."

"No, I am not getting drawn into this old argument. Talk. Now. Or I will do it again."

"Dude, that is like the one fetish I _don't_ have." Chloe glared at the ceiling, before taking a deep breath, bracing herself for something big. "Okay. Okay. Last night, you had that nightmare and…look, it wasn't your fault, okay?"

 _Oh god, maybe I_ ** _did_** _wet the bed?!_

"Chloe…."

"Last night, you had that nightmare and…I don't know what was happening in your hippie head but it must have been hella fucking scary. And…you rewound."

Max's blood went cold.

"No….." She whimpered.

Then Max was squeezing Chloe in a vicelike grip, terror lending her petite, wounded form strength far beyond what either of them would believe her capable of.

"No, I already gave you up once! I won't do it again. I WON'T." She buried her face in Chloe's shoulder.

"I'm not giving this up. Not ever." She continued. Looking back up at Chloe, she narrowed her eyes.

" _You are_ ** _mine_** _._ " She hissed.

The smile on Chloe's face was the sweetest, happiest thing Max had ever seen. She leaned down with tears in her eyes, and pressed a long, lingering kiss to Max forehead as she whispered

"Hella yours."

They held each other, for a time. The quiet buzz of the hospital around them, the cars driving around outside, all fell away as they simply processed the affirmation of their bond.

Chloe took a deep breath, drying her tears as she kissed Max's forehead again.

"It isn't an option."

Max beamed up at her. "You are right, it isn't."

"No, well not " _no"_. Hella yes to the whole together forever thing. I mean, like…we don't have the butterfly photo. I was thinking about how we might track it down but it is probably evidence now. Locked away in the police station or something."

"Oh! Good."

"Good?"

"Yeah. Even knowing what I would choose this time…Fuck being faced with that decision again."

Chloe nodded. "Yeah, first time was brutal enough. So, like, I've been thinking about our next move. Not just gonna sit here and wait for that fucking storm to kill everyone. If my punk ass wasn't as crippled as it is hot, I would sling you over my shoulder and carry you to Seattle myself."

Max smiled. She could picture it so easily. Although, in her mind Chloe wasn't carrying her over her shoulder but in her arms. She snuggled deeper into Chloe's embrace, the legs wrapped around Chloe's thigh squeezing hard as she pressed herself against Chloe in response to the unexpected thought.

"But, I can't carry shit and you need your doctors and drugs and shit. Only way we are getting out is as part of some bigger evacuation. No fucking choice but to be heroes."

Max nodded. It made sense.

"We have, like, five days. So I figure a day to research and prepare."

Chloe grabbed Max's phone from the table by her bed, handing it to her.

"First step is reconnecting, Maximus. Can't affect the world unless you are a part of it. We call everyone we can, find out about any weird shit going on in town. We still don't know how this shit works. You rewinding on a different day could cause this all to start off with a rain of French Fries or fucking whatever. If we hear about snow we know it is gonna be the same so we can start predicting the other shit. Build up credibility, predict the storm. Evacuate everyone and get shiny fucking medals."

"Sounds like a plan, Chlo. Kinda hoping for the French Fry storm instead of the apocalypse one." Max said as she started scrolling through the mountain of text messages and missed calls awaiting her.

"Im gonna start with Kate. I need to find out how she is anyway….."

"Good call. Church girl has come in to pray for you every day."

"Awwww, Kate is such a sweetheart."

"Even offered to include me. Silly bunny, everyone knows I am already damned."

"Oh you are not. If I have to sneak you into heaven I will."

When they drifted off to sleep that night, there had been no reports of unusual weather, fry based or otherwise.


	6. Friends

ME: Hey, Kate, it's Max! Im finally awake! Are you okay?

KATE: Am _I_ okay? Max, you are the one in the hospital! How are YOU?

ME: Worried about my tea buddy! :( I know you have been going through a terrible time lately.

ME: I was trying to think of how to be there for you but, bang and all of a sudden two weeks have passed. :(

ME: So…how are you?

KATE: Oh Max. That is so sweet, really. Ever since the details started coming out, everyone has been so apologetic. Even Victoria.

KATE: I am having a tough time forgiving _her_ , though.

KATE: How much do you know about what Jefferson was up to?

MAX: Enough. Do you want to talk about it?

KATE: Maybe later

KATE: For now I just want to talk to Blackwell's hero!

KATE: And number 1 photographer.

KATE: No matter what Victoria says.

ME: Thanks! :)

ME: Are you busy today?

KATE: Never too busy for you Max!

KATE: I can bring you some tea!

KATE: Oh uhm. Does your friend Chloe like tea? I'm never sure how to talk to her.

KATE: I am sure she is nice of course.

KATE: Oh wait. Unless "nice" is like an insult for her?

ME: Well she will act all sarcastic.

ME: But deep down she loves it.

ME: She thinks your adorable :D

ME: If you want to get to know Chloe.

ME: Just imagine if everyone was really really mean to Alice and she felt like she had to act super tough to get through it.

KATE: Awwww, poor thing.

KATE: But now I am picturing Alice with her fur dyed blue.

ME: And tiny spiked bracelets!

KATE: Oh gosh.

ME: Kate this is Chloe. Was reading over Maxalicious's shoulder. Stole her phone.

ME: WE NEED TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN

ME: PUNK BUNNY!

KATE: Oh gosh.

ME: Kate it's Max again.

ME: I got the phone back.

ME: HIDE THE BUNNY!

KATE: Oh gosh.

Max stretched as she sat up in bed, sighing contently.

"Time to go back to your own bed, Chloe."

Chloe frowned. "What? Why, this is cozy as fuck."

Max shrugged. "Well, uhm, Kate…..Kate will be here soon."

"Yeah, and?"

"Well, I don't want her to…..y'know. Get the wrong idea."

Max wasn't sure what she had been expecting. But it wasn't for Chloe's face to go completely blank, her smug grin becoming a frigid mask as the wicked mischief in her eyes was replaced by a hollow emptiness. Without a word she slipped out of Max's bed and back into her own, turning to lay on her side with her back to Max as she pulled the covers over her head.

 _Fuck._

Anger would have been one thing. Max was well and truly acquainted with Chloe's temper. But this…..passivity spoke of a deeper pain. One Max had no idea what to do about.

She wasn't even sure how she had caused it.

* * *

When Kate finally arrived, Max almost cheered. The tense silence she and Chloe had been stuck in hadn't let up at all. Hopefully Kate's undeniable sweetness would break them out of it.

She smiled as she walked to Max's side, handing her a takeaway cup with her usual order before putting another cup by Chloe's bed.

"Hi Max, it's so great to see you again."

She was dressed in her usual conservative manner, with her hair done up in it's customary bun. But her eyes were clear, her gaze steady as she made eye contact with Max, her head held high. It reminded the young photographer of the old Kate, before Jefferson and the Dark Room. The only lingering change was a thoughtful crease between her brows.

Max smiled. "You too."

 _You have no idea how good, Kate._

Sipping at her tea, Max leaned back with a contented sigh. She pretended not to notice Chloe's hand poking out from her blankets to grab the tea Kate had left for her, before snaking back in.

"Dana mentioned she would be by later, too. Are you doing okay, Max? You kind of dodged that question before. If, if you aren't ready to talk, then you don't-"

"I – I am ready to talk, Kate. Thank you for being so…Thank you."

Max took a deep breath, ignoring the sound of slurping coming from beneath Chloe's blankets.

"I keep thinking about how close I was to dying. I'm not really religious, like you – oh but I'm not _un_ religious or anything, I just never took it that seriously I guess. So I don't really know what happens when, when you die. If it's just – just nothing. Just not, not _being._ If everything I am can just end, is there any point to any of it? All my hopes and dreams, everything I want and value and love and dream of. In one minute a tiny chunk of metal can end it all. And that, that's pretty scary I guess." Max had to blink the tears from her eyes.

"And I think about…..everything I have left undone. The…...experiences I have never had. Like, I know this is against your beliefs and all and sorry, but….still being a virgin. I always wanted to wait, not necessarily for marriage but definitely for the right person. But, but this world it isn't, it doesn't just wait and let you get around to those special moments. It could take away everything in an instant. I never even sent my photo's to a gallery, even Victoria does that! I just took picture after picture, talking about how one day I would send them out. S-such a coward. Talking about how one day I would live, instead of just – just living. All the opportunities I lost, time I wasted."

Five years she was never getting back.

"So no. No I'm not okay." Kate was blinking away tears of her own right now as she leaned down to hug Max.

"I am so sorry you have had to go through this, Max. Is there anything I can do?"

"Can you…can you tell me about, well, god?"

Kate took a deep breath, a frown finding it's way to her gentle face.

"No."

" _No?!_ Aren't…aren't you supposed to….like, spread the good word?"

"I'm supposed to do right by my friends. And I'm not sure this is right for you right now. I once thought that there was no "wrong" way to believe. That so long as someone had the Lord that was all that mattered. But the way my church turned on me, used my faith to hurt me…God is perfect, but our ways of understanding Him aren't. My faith was always a great comfort to me, until then at least, so I am sure it could be a comfort to you too."

"But I realize now that there _is_ a wrong way to come to the Lord. This isn't something you should do out of fear, because you have had to face death and don't want it to be the end. Faith is about so much more. And it…..feels exploitative. Swooping in when you are vulnerable, using that to pull you into such a huge commitment."

Kate smiled warmly. "That's not a healthy way to start your relationship with the Lord."

Max was stunned. "Kate that's…..thank you. That's a perspective I really wasn't expecting from you."

There was a bit of a blush on Kate's cheeks now, a surprisingly playful glint in her eye as she responded.

"I am not _just_ 'The Jesus Girl', Max. I have other interest and opinions!"

"Yeah, who knew all that badass was just lurking under the wholesome surface!"

Chloe was evidently done sulking, the blankets had been pulled down to her waist and she had turned onto her other side to face the younger girls. The expression on her face exactly half way between mischievous and devious.

"I'm gonna have you tatted up in no time." She continued.

"Oh gosh."

The rest of Kate's visit passed in friendly banter, Chloe doing everything she could to get a rise out of the religious girl while Max watched with a smile, backing up one or the other depending on what whim struck her.

* * *

Once Kate had left, Chloe made her way back to Max's side, simply standing there awkwardly. Max's emotional confession to Kate had her far too worried to back off, but Max's earlier dismissal of Chloe left her unsure of just how much comfort would be welcomed.

Taking a deep breath, Chloe began to talk.

"Max, a lot of the same shit has been going through my head too. I died so many fucking times, I-"

 _No, I can't fucking go and make this about myself. She has been through a hundred different kinds of hell for you, stop being so fucking self centred._

"My point is, you can…..talk to me, y'know. About this shit?"

"I know Chloe, I wanted…." She sighed. "I don't know what I wanted from Kate. Something religious I guess. With you I….I didn't want to…..I dunno. Burden you, I guess. You have been through so much. You deserve support, not for me to drag you down with what I need."

"Fucking fuck off with that fucking bullshit. Partners, right? Your issues are my issues. Whatever you need, whenever you need it. Not knowing what is going on in that hipster head of yours is way more stressful then you laying your shit on me."

Max smiled as her hand found Chloe's. "Thanks, Chloe. We are gonna have plenty of time together now, so plenty of time for me to make this mistake again, because I'm a fuckup, so don't be afraid to kick my ass over this in the future."

"Max, I promise your ass will never be safe around me again."

"Thanks Chlo."

"Any time."

* * *

Dana had to put down the overstuffed box she carried into the hospital room in order to hug Max, the taller and more athletic girl being as gentle as she could with the wounded artist.

Picking the box up again she dumped it onto Max's bed as she started rifling through the contents while Chloe watched curiously.

"Okay, so I got all the photo's from your wall, the old teddy, the lanterns, the red cushion with "Max" on it, laptop, some other crap….basically everything you asked for. Oh and Lisa was fine, Kate said she had been watering her."

"Thanks _so much_ Dana. It's gonna be just like back in my dorm! Even better, actually, with an awesome room mate for company instead of Victoria across the hall."

Dana laughed. "I'll bet. Chloe knows how to keep it real! And makes a pretty good Ariel, in a pinch."

Max blinked in confusion while Juliet giggled and Chloe groaned.

"For fuck's sake, you people won't let that go! That was one fucking time! I was sixteen, I did a lot of stupid shit! People make mistakes at that age! I did cool shit too, just the next day I robbed the DA and got in a knife fight with a drug dealer but no, people just talk about my shame."

Juliet's eyes were as wide as saucers. "Chloe I'm pretty sure those were backwards. Most people would think of the knife fighting as the mistake and doing so well in a play you wind up the toast of the town as the triumph."

Chloe leaned back smugly. "Bitch, I am _not_ most people."

Dana put the last picture up and stepped back to examine her, Chloe and Juliet's work. The photo collage spread across the wall on Max's right, not a perfect recreation but it wasn't like there had been any specific order to them back in her dorm. The important thing was that they were _hers._ Her art, spread out all around her.

That had always been immensely comforting to the young photographer. Ever since she moved to Seattle and found herself overwhelmed by a new city right after the death of her second father figure. Max had plastered the walls with every photo she had which was taken by him, until she could feel him all around her.

Over the months, as she had adapted and recovered, she had replaced his photo's with her own. Now it was her way of claiming a space, making it _hers_. She hadn't felt right in her dorm until her photo wall was up.

"Thank you so much, guys."

Dana smiled back. "No problem, Max! Blackwell spirit, right? We can't abandon our hero now."

"And yes, you are a fucking hero." Chloe interjected.

"Ugh, at least wait until _after_ I talk shit about myself."

"No way, Max, you are way too predictable." The punk replied.

"You _are_ Blackwell's hero, though. I have written articles about it and everything." Juliet said. "Has anybody been keeping you guys up on Blackwell gossip?"

"Nah. Even in a coma Maximus has more interest in Blackhell bullshit then me. Why, people been burning Prescott effigies?"

"Pretty much." Dana said, eyes lighting up with the sheer joy of gossip. "Things have been crazy lately. The Prescotts have been in full damage control mode, throwing money into everything they can to build their rep. Hasn't helped though, people have completely turned on Nathan and Victoria, the jokes are actually getting…..kinda mean. Half the kids in Blackwell are referring to toilets as "Prescotts" and last time Trevor went to the bathroom he said he needed to "go do a Prescott". I don't think Victoria has been sober since the shooting."

Max made sure not to smile. Knowing people had turned on Victoria made her feel good for reasons she didn't really want to examine. Just like Nathan's fate, junk food or Chloe's ass. Chloe herself had no such reservations about showing how she felt at the way Nathan's fate had altered his family name, with a broad grin and a downright depraved cackle.

Dana continued. "Wells has resigned, well it was more like one of those "resign right now so we don't get embarrassed by firing your ass" kind of things. Maybe if he was just in charge during a shooting or just the guy who hired Jefferson he could hold on, but after what Juliet dug up…..sorry you should be telling this Jules."

"I can do one better!" Juliet said, reaching into her bag and pulling out a copy of the school paper before handing it to Max.

 _Principle's Well Runs Dry._

 _Juliet Watson, Oct 19 2013_

 _The shocking crimes of Nathan Prescott have devastated our school, Arcadia Bay and even the state of Oregon. The investigation has now turned to our esteemed Principal, Raymond Wells, who resigned in disgrace this week._

 _The behaviour of Nathan Prescott has been an open secret among Blackwell's students for years now. Constant disrespect, misbehaviour and rule breaking tolerated by faculty, bullying and harassment students know better than to report, a new student would rightfully be confused by Nathan's treatment. Until they notice they live in the "Prescott Dormitory". The influential family has never been shy about throwing it's weight around, but multiple sources now confirm that the Prescott foundation has, since Nathan Prescott became a student, donated millions of dollars to the school. In an unsurprising twist, we have also learned that Sean Prescott has personally provided Wells with what the former Principal refers to as "additional, unofficial funding"._

 _Under the table envelopes of cash, provided both on a regular schedule and a bonus upon every infraction committed by Nathan and subsequently covered up by Wells. Wells even kept two separate student records for Mr Prescott. One doctored at Sean Prescott's request, presenting his son as the perfect student, and the real record, listing every infraction and misdemeanour._

 _Upon reviewing the undoctored report, Blackwell's board has determined that Nathan Prescott has accumulated at least seven offenses worthy of expulsion – even without considering the serious crimes that have recently come to light._

 _Even more troubling, an email exchange between Wells and former head of Blackwell security, Darren Lunbar, reveals a plan to deliberately "cull" scholarship students Wells felt would not go on to bring enough prestige to Blackwell, as well as students who may damage the schools reputation. The email organizes students into several categories including "Problematic", "High Risk" and "Dead Weight". Those classified "Problematic" were to be passively monitored, "High Risk" students were to be actively monitored with any infraction used as justification for expulsion. Worst of all "Dead Weight" students were to be actively provoked, with Lunbar and other security staff instructed to create situations where the student would act out to justify their removal. Dunbar was let go, along with most security staff, after an incident which left a student hospitalized on the 8th of May, 2010. He was replaced by David Madsen, who went on to gather evidence crucial in the ongoing Dark Room case and led a complete restructuring of Blackwell's security staff._

 _Acting Principle Grant has requested that students and their families be patient as details continue to be released._

Max handed the article to Chloe with a sigh, trying to process what she had read as her friend devoured the article herself.

"Mother fucking dog licking goat groping cat humping leaky prolapsed asshole piece of shit CUNT! I knew, I fucking _knew_ that drunk pool of asscheese was out to get me! "High Risk", there is a high risk of my boot in your ass you goddamned microwaved pubic hair!"

Chloe threw the tattered remnants of the article aside as she glared at the world in general.

"Holy shit do I wish I could publish even half of that!" Juliet's voice had a tint of awe. "You summed up the general sentiment more or less perfectly. So many people are suing the school that Blackwell may have to shut down!"

Dana nodded. "Probably why they put Mrs Grant in charge. She is the only person working for Blackwell nobody wants to sue."

Max was stunned. She supposed she shouldn't be though. So many parents had trusted Blackwell with their children, with the depth of Well's corruption exposed…...she sighed. Heads rolling would be only the beginning. Hell, even her own parents could be suing.

 _Why can't it just be over? Why can't things just be…normal, for a bit?_

"Actually I was wondering if you wanted to make a statement, maybe give an interview. Blackwell's hero would make one hell of a scoop."

"Again with the hero stuff?"

"Yes, Max, again! You even won the Everyday Hero photography contest!"

 _Wait, what?_

"Um, what?"

"What do you mean, Max?"

"I never submitted my entry for that contest!"

The confusion on her features was answered in kind.

"Are you sure didn't enter that last day, Max? You could have memory issues, you did get shot after all."

"I'm positive! I couldn't forget a single minute of that class."

 _I fucking repeated it enough times._

Juliet sat back, an intrigued glint coming into her eye. No doubt the budding reporter found the mystery fascinating. Max was mostly annoyed. She had had enough of solving mysteries.

Dana must have picked up on her discomfort, because she wasted no time changing the subject.

"So I brought your makeup, but no offense Max your selection is _shit._ I couldn't resist bringing some of my own."

 _Thank god, no more zombie Max._

"Why? Not like there is anyone here to look good for." Juliet asked.

Max blushed, glancing at Chloe as her tongue darted out to wet her suddenly dry lips.

"Yeah Max, just your Gal Pal here." Chloe said, raising a brow.

Dana rolled her eyes. "Pfft, don't need to be looking to impress someone! Sometimes a girl just wants to look good! Even hotter than normal, that is. And you will, with the benefit of my expertise."

"Yes, _thank you,_ Dana." Max closed her eyes as her friend leaned over with a brush.

Once Dana and Juliet had left, with many promises of visiting later, Max turned to Chloe.

* * *

"So, how do I look?"

Chloe sighed. Did they really have to do this now?

"You look fine, Makeover Max."

"Oh. Thanks." Max's voice was heavy with disappointment.

"Fuck do you want, Max? A goddamn poem about how hot you are?"

"I…..I dunno. I just….sorry I guess." Max muttered, burrowing down into her covers.

 _God job, asshole. You_ _ **know**_ _how insecure she is._

"Chloe, can we…talk about something?"

 _Oh yeah, that's how every good conversation starts._

"Sure, Max."

"I hurt you earlier. Before Kate."

 _Fuck. There's no way I'm talking to Max about this shit._

"Lot's of things set me off Max. Just ask Step-Soldier."

"I am sorry to pry Chloe, for once, but I have already hurt you too much by sitting back and being passive. No more. From now on we communicate. Even if we can't see eye to eye on things, we _talk_ about them. The only mistake I have ever made with you is not talking, not being honest."

 _ **Fuck.**_ _I am talking to Max about this shit, aren't I?_

She didn't even have to look at Max to know her little hipster would be giving her that _Max_ look, the one that always broke her, turned her into a simpering pile of mush. Eyes bottomless blue wells of adoration as she worried her bottom lip between her teeth, pale skin making every freckle stand out, endless affection radiating from her always sincere face.

"Rachel was….she was always "on" as an actor. Always making sure she played a role. A role that depended on…who she was with. When it was y'know, when it was just us, me and her, she would….she was everything I wanted. All warmth and affection and everything great. Those moments, with her, they were…they were worth everything else." Chloe had to blink back tears.

Rachels hair falling around Chloe's face, the gentle curve of Rachel's smiling lips pressed into her neck, her lips. Her thighs.

Gasping in a deep breath, Chloe forced her thoughts back to reality.

"But those moments ended. And then we were around others and it was time for the mask to be back on. Or…..maybe just a different mask, I guess."

That picture, Rachel dancing for Frank the way she had for Chloe. That _letter_.

"When she was wearing the party girl mask, she had room for a punk best friend. When she was wearing her perfect student mask, a little less so. But neither….neither had room for girlfriend."

The last came out as a pained sob.

"Whatever we were in private….whatever we….. _did_ …..it was…"

She was interrupted by a soft thump and a loud clatter and she finally looked up to find that Max's weak legs had given out as her partner in time attempted to make her way to Chloe's bed, and her fall had brought down several expensive looking machines still attached to her.

"Fucking ow." Max muttered as she crawled the last little bit and into Chloe's bed.

"There." She smiled warmly, face smug with triumph as she took Chloe's hand. Jesus, that ridiculous fucking makeover. Dana and Juliet knew their shit. A little extra eyeshadow and mascara and some subtle lipstick turned Max from an adorable girl on the cusp of turning into an absolute hottie into, well, that absolute hottie.

"So when I insisted on separating before Kate got here….?"

"Yeah it…..brought shit back I guess. It wasn't…Rachel wasn't some manipulating puppetmaster cackling as she fucked with people or anything. It fucking tore her up inside, and every time she hurt me she would be…..well she worked fucking hard at making it up to me. She just couldn't escape the damn mask. It was, like, pathological with her. Wore her fucking masks so long she couldn't get by without them."

Max settled in next to Chloe pillowing her head on her friend's shoulder.

"Thank you for opening up. And I'm so fucking sorry, for bringing that back."

"It's cool, Max. Thanks for….making us talk."

 _And for making comforting my moody ass the first thing you get out of bed and walk for. No fucking way do I deserve a friend like you._

Max hummed and closed her eyes.

"Warren's coming soon. You don't want to…go back to your bed?"

"Nah." Max muttered. "I'm comfy here."

It was a nurse who came in next, summoned by whatever terrible things Max had done to the machinery. But, _still._

* * *

Hearing Chloe's voice in the vibrations through her body was even better then the way it normallt sounded, and Max smiled as she nuzzled into her friend's shoulder. After the nurses had forced her back into her own bed, she had wasted no time getting Chloe in with her before slipping into a gentle doze.

Whatever Chloe's conversation partner, whoever the fuck that was, had said must have been pretty funny. Max pressed herself even further into Chloe, delighting in the way her entire body shook with laughter. Chloe responded with a gentle hand brushing through chestnut locks.

"Yea Max has always been a snuggler. Back when we were kids, every time we had a sleepover we would go to bed on opposite sides, by the time she was asleep she would be completely wrapped around me. It was fucking adorable. Still is, actually."

 _Thanks Chloe you too._

"So you think if unbalanced timetravel _did_ cause environmental disturbances it could grow exponentially, with each new instance adding to the instability. My question to that though is if the instability would decrease over time, allowing for more time travel while maintaining reasonable stability or if, given the nature of timetravel, trying to wait out any instability before adding more would be pointless."

 _Fucking what?_

"Well yeah, but let me remind you that is just my best guess going off the hypothetical scenario you put forward, and I have to stress again I am _not_ an expert on this kind of thing. I really have no idea for the question, there is just…not enough data. With the chance to experiment….but that's the big problem with time travel. It's all hypothetical's and theory."

 _That's_ _ **Warren's**_ _voice! Why the hell is Warren talking timefuckery with Chloe? Hang on, what's the difference between "unbalanced" timetravel and the normal kind? Which was I doing?_

"You have some really cool ideas about this stuff Chloe. We really should have talked while you were at Blackwell!"

 _Awww, now Warren is way too into Chloe as well! We have so much in common!_

"It's nothing dude, just some shit I think about while high."

"You should get some of these ideas down, write a Sci-Fi book or something!"

"Dude, anything I write would turn into lesbian porn pretty fucking quick."

Max smiled. _Yeah it would._

Warren laughed nervously. "That's not such a bad thing."

Max finally sat up, stretching until her body creaked and cracked. "Damn straight."

"Nah." Chloe's grin was cocky, eyes dancing with mischief. "There's nothing straight about it."

Warren laughed again but Max, so much more used to Chloe, simply rolled her eyes.

"Have a good nap?"

"I did, actually. I feel great."

Chloe's grin widened. "You look it too."

Warren snorted, glancing at Max's face before looking away guiltily.

"Huh? Oh, Dana's makeover."

"You left most of it on my shoulder, Maximum Makeup."

Glancing back down, Max found was right, she had smudged makeup all over Chloe's shoulder, doubtlessly leaving herself looking ridiculous.

"Well fuck you guys. I know I'm pretty."

The sound of both of them stammering over each other as they rushed to be the first to agree was as amusing as it was awkward.

* * *

Warren had been fidgeting for a while and he hadn't even got around to the reason for his visit.

He had spent so long obsessing over Max that he had made this almost impossible for himself. It had taken so much to work himself up for this, then his resolve had crumpled the minute he saw her. Seeing Max curled up in a hospital bed, her normally pale skin downright ghostly, awake at last but still too weak to stay up a whole day really drove home how much she had been through. And how much of a tool he was.

Max had literally taken a bullet for a friend. Warren liked to think he would do he same, if he was ever called to. That he could stand up and fight even after seeing a gun and realising a conflict would be deadly. But he was painfully aware of what the statistics said, that most people would freeze up and be useless. He couldn't help but doubt he would be equal to the task. He hadn't even been able to stand up to Nathan's bullying.

And now here he was, about to maybe make things worse. He couldn't do that to her, he would have to go home, give her time. To rest and recover.

"Dude, you look like you are about to shit a brick."

Max's friend was so cool. And scary. And hot. And smart, too! She had some really interesting questions and ideas about time travel.

"Ughm, yeah, sorry I kinda….wait, first, Max how are you?"

"A little bit more annoyed every time someone asks me that!" Her gentle smile took any bite out of her words. Fuck she was beautiful, even with that hilariously smudged makeup she didn't give enough of a shit to take off.

"Really, though, I am doing okay Warren. I had a great talk with Kate earlier."

"Are…..are you sure, Max?"

" _Yes._ "

Now she just looked irritated. That was good. Had to be like, strong and recovered, to get irritated right?

"So I….me and…well…it…" Fuck. Okay.

"So, after you got shot, I was kind of…affected."

Now she looked horrified. _**Shit.**_

"I was really worried about all of my friends and…..everyone was fucked up because of the shooting and what we found out about Jefferson. And me and….well me and Brooke…."

Now she looked relieved and…oddly hopeful? Huh.

"Well we were…..comforting each other and uhm…we didn't mean for anything to happen but…..one thing kind of…lead to another…"

Now she was…smiling? He hoped so at least. If this hurt her after all she had been through he would never be able to forgive himself. He had never picked up on any reciprocation of his affections, but he had never picked up on the opposite either. Which was hardly surprising, since like most girls she seemed to communicate primarily in some special language he was forever denied understanding of. No matter how hard he worked at it.

"One thing led to another and me and Brooke….kinda made out. I don't know if you picked up on it but I was kinda…..hitting on you. A lot. Like, wow. Oh god so much. So like, if you did pick up on it and….maybe…..want something to happen….moving on another chick while you are in a coma is the biggest dick move ever. So I have kinda just been _avoiding_ Brooke ever since and now she is mad. Well, im pretty sure she is mad since I think she slashed my tires and all. So I really need to talk to Brooke but I can't do that until I talk to you and, maybe, apologise? Or not? I don't…..I don't know…." He trailed off lamely.

Warren really hoped this all got sorted out. Brooke's drone had really good range. She could be watching him at any time.

Max's face seemed to be going through a hell of a lot of different emotions. He really wished he could read them. Chloe's face was perfectly still. That was a relief. She seemed the type to slash more then tires if some boy hurt her friend. Max was lucky to have such a good gal pal.

"I am very happy for the two of you….you, uhm, have my blessing? And….congratulations, I guess?"

Oh thank god. Max didn't like him!

* * *

Thank god Chloe managed to keep a straight face until Warren was gone. When she finally let loose the laughter she had been holding in since Warren's confession, there was no stopping it. It tore out of her in a hysterical wave, an irrepressible surge of wicked glee against which Max's glare accomplished nothing.

"Warren Warrened you! You…you got Warrened by your own Warren! This has never happened before in the entire history of Warrening! Warren squared! _Warrenception!"_

She was cackling now, head thrown back and blue eyes bright, mouth open wide with delight.

"Very funny Chloe."

"It is! It really really fucking is! Does Warren Warrening you un-Warren Warren? Or was Warren Warrened so hard he had no choice but to Warren in return? Retaliatory Warrening! Oh god, this is so…."

 _You brought this on yourself, Chloe._

Max did her best to paint a devastated look on her face. She had plenty to work with lately, so it wasn't exactly hard. She looked up at Chloe.

"I just got dumped and you are…making fun of me?"

"Errrr, what? But…..Warren….you…..because me and….uhm….I thought. Fuck, didn't you say you didn't like him? I thought…..fuck I'm so sorry Max!" Chloe started gently rubbing Max's arm, stammering attempts at reassurance.

Max's bottom lip trembled. "I _love_ him so much! I thought we were soulmates! Oh woe, my first love has ended!"

Chloe stopped trying to comfort Max.

"You…..you _bitch_! Holy shit, Mad Max, fuck you."

Chloe seemed caught between hurt and genuine respect.

"Okay, I kinda deserved that. Still pissed at you though."

"Just so long as you aren't mocking my non-existent pain anymore. I was seriously stressed when he started. Thought he was gonna go on about realizing how much he loved me. Now instead I won't have to find a way to explain to him that I'm not into guys. Like him! Guys like him!"

Chloe cracked a grin and rolled her eyes.

"Nice save Max. Get nice and cozy in that closet."

 _W-what on earth is she talking about? Chloe can be so ridiculous sometimes._

* * *

Their next visitor took them both by surprise. Chloe and Max were dicking around on their phones, back in their own beds, when he arrived.

"Price." Frank barked.

Chloe dropped her phone as she looked up, anger roaring in almost before the fear showed on her face.

"When are you getting out of this shithole?"

"For fuck's sake man, you will get your goddamn money! Get off my fucking crack, not a lot of opportunities to make bank in here."

Max did her best to glare threateningly at Frank. She had to work pretty hard at it. She didn't have a gun this time, after all. He didn't seem too impressed.

"Christ Chloe, I'm not here for that. I…..actually, shit, maybe I am. Yeah that would work. I got a job, do this for me and your debt is cleared."

Pity was rapidly replacing anger. Frank wasn't looking good. And not in the usual "drug dealer living in an RV" way. His skin was ghost pale, marked with the kind of grit and grime it was only possible to build up when not showering for over a week. Chloe was used to seeing Frank's eyes red and bloodshot, only now it was because he had been weeping, not getting stoned. Judging from the way his filthy clothes hung on him, he had gotten more food on his shirt then in his mouth lately.

Lowering her guard, Chloe rolled her eyes. "No fucking way dude. Last time I did a job for you I ended up getting chased by a bear. Rachel almost set it on fire!"

"You got the fucking money for your sleeve, didn't you?"

"And I lost five years off my fucking life. Bears are hella scary."

"Just listen to the fucking offer first, Christ Chloe. I am gonna…..get the fuck away from this shithole for a while. I just need someone to look after my fucking dog till I get back."

"What, that's it? Babysit your mutt?"

"He is not a mutt!" Frank roared. "Pompidou is a good boy!"

Max's giggle interrupted him. He glared back at her, but there was no heat in it.

"Why me, dude? You gotta have people to do shit for you." Chloe said.

"What can I say, my associates aren't exactly known for their caring nature. I got people for kicking the shit out of any dealer trying to sell in town without permission. I *don't* have people to look after something I love. Even if they did try and look after him, they would be a bad fucking influence. I don't want them dragging him into some fucking fight or whatever."

 _A bad influence on your_ _ **dog**_ _? Fuck is wrong with you dude. Besides, I'm the bitch who_ _ **killed**_ _him once._

"Yeah everyone in the neighbourhood wants me babysitting their kids, because _I'm_ such a good influence." Chloe rolled her eyes.

"They would if they knew what was good for them. You can front as hard as you like, Price, we both know when you love something you are fucking religiously devoted. You just don't let go, goddamn bulldog. Like with Rachel. You fucking knew something was up, fucking plastered this _fucking_ town with missing posters, while I was just crawling into a goddamn bottle….are you gonna accept or what?"

 _Goddamnit you just had to play the Rachel card._

"Of course she is." Max interjected. "It's getting paid three thousand dollars to play with a dog! It should be in a list of questions to ask people when trying to figure out if they are sane."

Frank seemed to agree with that sentiment.

Chloe sighed.

"How long, dude? And when?"

"In a few months and for a few months. I'm still planning shit, okay? I just needed to know he would be taken care of."

"Fine, if some other lunatic hasn't shot me or I haven't skipped town by whenever the fuck you piss off I will look after your dog. Happy?"

"Yeah, thanks." He tossed something at her as he turned to leave. "Later, Price. Check in the mouth."

As Chloe picked up the little white projectile, she turned it over to examine it and blinked in surprise. It was a little stuffed bulldog, with a tiny studded collar and white fur except for a patch on it's head which been clumsily coloured blue with some sort of marker. In the toy's mouth was a little baggie wrapped up tight, green visible through the transparent plastic.

Chloe couldn't help but laugh as she stashed her get well present. Asshole really should have opened with that. Now all she had to do was explain to Joyce that they were looking after a dog. And, ugh, _David_.

* * *

Alyssa's visit was brief. During a lull in the conversation, she unashamedly declared the ten minute conversation with Max and Chloe to be her "daily capacity for socialisation". Before she turned to go, however, she stopped and pulled something from her bag.

"Juliet mentioned you might want to see this, bye Max. Sorry to bail so quick."

"It's fine, Alyssa. I'm thankful you made the trip."

"Yeah, Mild Max over here isn't exactly an extrovert herself. If she wasn't on the best drugs in the state there is no way she would have been able to handle all of todays social interaction."

"Ha ha Chloe." Max accepted the magazine Alyssa held out, waving goodbye as the asocial girl left.

It was a fairly niche magazine about photography, specifically current events within the photography world. Including, at least for this issue, a certain photography contest.

 _How are they even still in business? The internet has left so many print publications dead or reeling, and this magazine is so niche. They must have some pretty reliable repeat customers. This is probably sitting ignored on art gallery countertops all over the country._

Flipping to the segment on the Everyday Hero's contest, she pushed down the guilt as she ignored everybody else's entry to find her own. It wasn't like they had changed since she had seen them in the Zeitgeist Gallery.

 _Oh. Oh shit._

 _This_ picture had changed since the last time she saw it. The white borders of the polaroid had been marked a deep dark red, the blood flowing from Max and Chloe's bodies as they bled out in a bathroom having flowed onto and around the discarded picture, staining and warping the borders of the photo but leaving the rest unaltered.

Some distant part of her, conditioned for years to analyse photographs, was trying to tell her that, visually, it was a surprisingly good effect. The angry, warped red border contrasted with the cool blues of the photo and the vivid brightness of the butterfly making both stand out strongly. The rest of her was trying to remember how to breathe.

"Chloe. Our butterfly photo…it's all the way in San Francisco."

* * *

By the time Chloe had calmed her down, thankfully without needing to bring in a nurse or up Max's dosage, the punk was struggling under the stress herself. Just as Max was forced to acknowledge to herself that she had no ideas that would help Chloe, the need to do so vanished.

A girl around Chloe's age walked in. She was dressed halfway between Chloe's punk style and Warren's nerdy getup, with the addition of a rainbow bracelet on her wrist. Her smile as she looked down at Chloe was indescribably smug and Chloe's responding smile was one of the most sincere Max had seen her show since their reunion.

Two guys followed her in. They shared the same dark skin and similar facial features, made even more evident by the friendly smile they shared and were both tall, though one was more muscular then the other. And probably 95% of humanity at that, the dude was _huge._ None of that bulk stopping him from moving with a casual grace evident even in the short walk from the door to the chair.

The more slender one had none of his brothers grace. Although he was as tall and almost as well muscled, he moved with an awkward hesitance that hinted both were a fairly recent development, the result of a dramatic growth spurt he had yet to adapt to, made more difficult by the box he was carrying. A pair of spectacles rested on his face with the comfortable familiarity of a permanent fixture.

"Steph! What the fuck, man, didn't you get out of this shitpit?"

"I got Drew and Mikey's dad to drive me down."

The older guy nodded. "We owed you a hospital visit, after all. Steph just tagged along."

"Good. This town is way too fucking straight with her gone. Seriously dude, all of you came all this way for me?"

The one with glasses smiled. "It's not that long a drive, Chloe. Only a few hours."

Max looked from one person to another, trying to keep up, until Chloe finally took pity on her.

"Max, these are some friends of mine from before I got my ass kicked out of Blackhell. We weren't that close until I met Rachel, three years ago. But then Rachel happened and I had a week almost as fucked up as the one we just had. Steph really helped me…come to terms with what I was feeling for Rachel. The brothers are Drew and Mikey North. Drew is just an idiot jock, but Mikey is cool. Somehow he is a bigger dork then you, even if he is getting ripped lately. Guys, this is my Max. She likes long walks on the beach, photography and taking bullets for idiot punks."

Drew rolled his eyes when she insulted him, not bothering to hide his smile.

"Drew is almost as good at throwing around a ball as you are at photography, which means he managed to earn his family a one way trip to a real fucking city, thank fuck. College football pays hella better then artsy shit I guess. Speaking of, Mikey is a pretty good artist. Remember those dorky comics we used to make when we were kids? Like those only with as much talent as enthusiasm."

"I also have…other interests." Mikey said with dramatic flair, opening the box he had carried in.

Chloe sat up excitedly.

"Amazeballs, you brought the game? Hella yes, Callamastia fights again motherfuckers! Do we have a spare character for Max?

Steph smiled. "We kinda brought a couple. Now, Max, you strike me as a sorceress?"

Max considered it for a while. "Fuck that, I want a big ass sword."

"Alright, we have like twenty minutes left on visitors hours. If we don't call it here the nurses will kick your asses out and just plain kick my ass. Seriously they are _so_ done with my shit. We can finish the game tomorrow. Drew, Mikey, gimme a hand? I've been stealing pudding from every patient on this floor, but with three of us we can cover way the fuck more ground. Steph, don't let Max cheat. She is the nosiest bitch you ever met."

Chloe was gone before anyone could object, the bemused North brothers following along, leaving Max and Steph to the awkwardly hopeful silence of two people who could tell they would be friends but just weren't there yet.

Max wet her lips, gaze not budging from the rainbow proudly adorning Steph's wrist.

"So." She blurted. "Wh-when did you _know_?"


	7. Gay

"Max you literally took a bullet for this girl. How many people would you do that for?"

Max scrunched up her eyes and shook her head.

"The question isn't _whether_ I love her, it's _how_ I love her."

Steph tried not to sigh.

"Well, it isn't anybody's place to tell you your sexuality but…that all sounds pretty fucking gay. You said yourself you have already kissed twice."

"…people kiss their friends."

Steph didn't bother trying not to sigh.

"Do you?"

"What?"

"Do _you_ kiss your friends?"

"….no."

"How many guys have you kissed? You don't exactly strike me as a party girl."

The knot of tension that had been sitting in Max's stomach since the conversation moved from Steph's interests to her own tightened.

"….none. But you are right, I'm not really….social."

Steph rolled her eyes at that.

"Forget the excuse, Max. You don't need to be Dana or Rachel to pull. Even Samantha Myers wound up with a boyfriend and she was the shyest person I have ever met. Besides, I still have friends at Blackwell. You think I didn't ask around about the girl who took a bullet for Chloe? Warren would have given his left leg to go out with you and I know of two other guys who would have jumped at the chance."

 _W hat? Who?_

"And it's not hard to see why. If Chloe hadn't staked a claim I would be seducing your hipster ass right now. That bitch always beats me to the hot ones…."

Max licked her lips, fingers drumming on her leg nervously as she tried to ignore the fluttering in her stomach at the compliment. Something she had only felt before when…when Chloe had given her similar compliments. But not as strong.

"You didn't have a single date, a single boyfriend, a single kiss. And it _wasn't_ from lack of opportunity. It was by _choice._ You spent most of your teenage years avoiding all that. _Why?_ "

Max hadn't even opened her mouth to reply when Steph held up a hand to stop her.

"The only person you owe that answer to is yourself. And you _do_ owe it. Wherever you land on this you need to get it figured out for your own sake."

 _Yeah you didn't need to help me on_ _ **that**_ _one._

"Years of avoiding everything connected to sex or romance, then a few days back with Chloe and you are already making out with her. That means something Max."

"Ok, ok, but fucking _what_?"

"You are sharing a room with her," Steph grinned. "Just crawl into her bed and find out."

Max's mop of hair bounced about as she shook her head wildly.

"I can't…. _experiment_ with her.

"Max, as someone who has seduced a lot of "straight" girls, especially since starting college, I am going to need you not to talk shit about experimentation. It has been _very_ good to me."

Smug triumph practically radiated off her.

* * *

Chloe had returned with a great bounty. Too great a bounty, it turned out. The precocious punk's prodigious, particularly petty pudding plundering probably went too far, her arms were too overloaded with cups of dessert to open the door.

Luckily Steph came to the rescue, opening it from the other side as Chloe glared at it.

 _Man am I fucking glad she is back. Even If it isn't for long._

"What up, Steph?"

"Oh you know, just drove all fucking day so a friend could con me into being someone's lesbianism mentor."

Chloe tried to shrug, but couldn't quite manage it with her loot.

"Well, you are so good at it…"

"What was the point of helping _you_ get your shit together if you were just gonna turn around and fob the next one off on me to me too? It was totally your turn, Chloe."

"I…yeah sorry but….with Max it…..it would've….shit "complicated" doesn't even fucking begin to describe it."

"Relax Chloe," Steph said gently. "I was just fucking with you. If you just wanted to get laid it would be one thing but….You really love her, don't you? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. It takes me longer to order a burger then it takes you to fall for a girl."

"Dude, that's because it takes you forever to order. Mum kicked you out last time."

"She kicked out all of us! And it was because Rachel set Mikey's salad on fire!"

"Honestly, she was doing him a favour. I have _never_ seen someone order a salad at the Two Whales, and that place is basically my second home. I didn't even know they served them. Should a salad even _be_ flammable."

"Probably not. But speaking of Rachel did she ever…I know she never came out as bi but did she admit what you were, just in private?"

Chloe looked away. "No. Never. Usually as soon as she sobered up…"

Steph groaned with the frustrated patience of someone who had seen one dear friend hurt another far too many times.

"That's awful, Chloe. You deserved better from her." She sighed. "And she deserved better from herself. I'm sure she loved you."

"Yeah well, can't bitch about the dead, can we? If…..if we had had more time…"

"I'm so sorry about what happened to her. It's…Jesus, we were supposed to be safe there. Poor Rachel. I couldn't believe it when I heard."

"I wish I could say the same. But no way does this fucking world let someone as cool as Rachel be. It had to fucking twist and warp her until she was starting to become everything she hated about her father. But that wasn't fucking enough, was it? Had to keep going, tear her down completely. Take away the last of her dignity and even her goddamn life. This world has to crush everything beautiful."

Chloe paused in her rant as her friend laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. Her eyes bored into the wood of the door that had closed behind Steph.

"But Max, she's…Jesus Steph I wish I could tell you how amazing she is, how strong. The thing everyone is worshipping her for, taking that bullet? Hella fucking badass but just the tip of the goddamn iceberg. She can't…make anything feel okay with two words and a smile, the way Rachel did, but she can ride out every wave of bullshit this pit sends. Under all the adorable hipster fluff there is this…iron core of badass. When the world tries to break her she doesn't just remain unbroken. _She breaks it back._ "

Finally finishing, she stopped trying to blink the tears from her eyes. And simply let them flow while Steph awkwardly hugged her around her overflowing arms.

* * *

Max had been hoping her nervousness would fade when Chloe came back, but when Steph opened the door once more to let her in before waving to Max and leaving the young photographer found her mouth bone dry and her stomach fluttering.

"Hey pudding, want some pudding?" Chloe said, holding out her stash of stolen desserts.

Even through her nervousness, Max couldn't help but giggle.

"Sure, Chloe."

She watched the punk dump the loot onto her bed, before fishing out one pudding cup for each of them and tossing Max's to her.

"Uhm, spoon?"

"Yeah, in a little bit. I am still too keyed up from Steph's visit to get back in bed yet and…. you meant an actual spoon, to eat to pudding with, didn't you? Damnit, I forget to grab one. Shit I had this whole plan where we were gonna, like, share the same spoon, pass it back and forth and maybe feed each other with it a bit. Was gonna be so sweet. Guess I fucked that up."

Chloe shrugged off her awkwardness, opening her pudding and licking the lid clean before sticking in two fingers and pulling out a big blob of pudding, sticking it in her mouth.

"Not completely, Chlo. We can share your fingers."

Chloe coughed and gagged as she tried to swallow, laugh, pull her fingers out of her mouth and make twelve different perverted jokes, all at once.

"Oh you ass," she finally managed to get out. "You timed that deliberately didn't you?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about." Max scooped up some of her pudding and smugly popped it into her mouth.

"Bitch please," Chloe fired back by sticking two fingers into hers before pulling them out and splitting them into a V shape, sticking her tongue between and licking up the pudding along the sides of her fingers.

Max blushed and threw her empty pudding container at Chloe, her giggle dying on her lips as it fell off her friends face and left pudding splattered across it. Turns out it _wasn't_ empty.

Chloe glared as she threw her own pudding cup, almost half full.

And so began the Great Pudding War of 2013.

There were heavy casualties, including but not limited to two sheets and four pillow cases, the patience of several nurses, the repainting of one hotel room and forced Max to spend three hours cleaning her photos.

* * *

As the long-suffering nurses left with a glare and most of the bedding, Max sat up in her new clean sheets. Moving as far back as she could and patting the spot in front of her, she smiled contently as Chloe settled in facing Max and crossed her legs.

"So, uhm, C-Chloe. I…..uhm."

"You had a talk with Steph?"

"Yeah."

"And it made a lot of things clearer?"

"Yeah."

"And now you need to have a serious talk with me?"

"Yeah."

"C'mon mumble Max, I can't do the whole conversation myself."

"Yeah…..s-sorry. Okay. Remember how earlier I was talking about how…..after everything we have been through we owe it to each other to be honest? So long as we have that we can….we can get through anything."

"Yeah Max." Chloe's hand was warm on Max's arm as she rubbed up and down.

"Steph and I talked about, about my feelings. And you. That is, my feelings _for_ you. And, and how they are….really complicated. I just keep switching between flirting back and hiding from my feelings and….."

Max was babbling now, nervousness back in almost full force. She couldn't bring herself to meet Chloe's eyes.

"Max, you need to stop dancing around and say it. Okay, complicated feelings. But _what_ complicated feelings."

"I think I might want to be more then friends – more then _best friends -_ with you. When you flirt with me, when we kissed….nothing's ever made me feel that way and I want, I want so much more. I'm…attracted to you."

Chloe released a shaky breath.

"Okay, cool, I haven't really been quiet about being hella into-"

"But it, it's all so _new_ Chloe. I can't. _We_ can't."

She grit her teeth.

"Why the fuck not!"

"These feelings are less then a week old Chloe! I'm not risking everything between us on something so new! I don't know if this is just a weird reaction to our reunion. What if I'm not actually gay, Chlo? People get curious, they go through phases."

"Max you will never figure this out if you are too scared to start something. You know me, trust me. Are comfortable with me. If you can't explore this with me then who the fuck will you be able to?"

"Chloe I can't just reduce you to some _experiment._ You deserve so much better than that from me."

"What the fuck are you on, Max?"

"Experiments _end_ Chlo. They aren't meant to last."

"Everything ends, dumbass. Do you think the pain of Dad dying means I wish I never had such a great father? When you came back I didn't shit myself over how lonely I would be if you left again. I just enjoyed having you. Better to live while you can then hide from life because it might hurt."

"I fucking abandoned you during the hardest time of your life, even with all we meant to each other! I need to be more responsible, more careful, so there is no chance of me breaking your heart. _I won't hurt you again!_ "

"Yes, you will. Do your parents never hurt each other? Never say or do the wrong thing? Never fuck up? Couples _fight_ Max. It's healthy. They still love each other. Are still happy."

Chloe reached over and took Max's hands in her own before continuing.

"Ever since you came back you have been…a fucking light in the dark. You turned every thing in my shit life into gold, made good on every fucking childhood promise, made every moment of emptiness and pain worth it. And guess what? You still fucking hurt me. When you took Kate's call in Two Whales it was like a punch in the gut. But you were right to answer, no matter how much of an ass I was being. You are going to hurt me Max, even when you don't fuck up or say the wrong thing – and you are gonna do plenty of those. Life is rough, you fucking get hurt. For the longest time I thought it couldn't be worth it. But, if you get lucky, you can find the one thing that makes it all worthwhile."

Chloe blinked the tears from her eyes as she squeezed Max's hands.

"If…..if this is just a passing phase, or something you decide to never explore, or if you just…want someone else, then okay I will accept that. But the excuse you went with? Fuck off with that weak-ass shit Max. Because…I can't separate all the ways I love you, Maxine Caulfield. I can't even count them."

Chloe finally ran out of words, leaving her looking almost as pale and drained as she had when literally bleeding out. And even more vulnerable. If Max had a week to prepare, she still wouldn't be able to offer a suitable speech in response. Words were such crude and clumsy things, far too limited to ever express everything she needed them to. Perhaps that was why a single picture was worth a thousand of them.

She cast her eye along her photo wall in the vain hope that something there could shoulder this burden for her. It had always been so much easier to capture how she felt in her lens. But there was no salvation to be found in her art and Chloe was still waiting for a reply, heart and soul offered up in a display she would have considered intolerably mushy such a short time ago.

If neither words nor photography could provide a worthy response, she had only one option left.

Action.

Any hesitation now and Max would lose her nerve and never go through with it.

So Max didn't hesitate.

The hands still holding Chloe's pulled in, gently forcing the punk to lean forward at the same time Max did.

Chloe's pale face was finally cleared of anything resembling pain and anger, allowing her warmth and beauty to shine through, her usual cocky grin had transformed during her speech into an unsure quirk of the lips with her teeth worrying at her bottom lip, now being swept away by a disbelieving, eager smile. Her skin looked so soft, this close, and now her face was all Max could see. Her eyes, such a beautifully vivid blue they put even that butterfly to shame, wide with wonder.

It was far too much for Max to take in, so she closed her eyes as her nose bumped Chloe's, slid along it.

And then their lips were touching.

The kiss was long and deep, curious and unsure, but so very sweet and sincere. Without even the slightest shred of a pretence, no dare to hide behind or killer storm to force this moment, there was only Chloe and Max, the love she had spent five years hiding from.

A lifetime of cultural condition melted away, the little voice in the back of Max's head whispering that this was wrong, that she shouldn't be doing this with a girl, not standing a chance before a truth so self-evident. It died a swift, brutal death, unloved and unmourned.

There was only Chloe's lips against hers, the wetness of Chloe's tears against her cheek, the warmth of her hand in Max's hair. Two nurses came in to check on Max, the heart monitor she was still hooked up to shouting it's own celebration for the whole hospital to hear. They shared a look, and left without disturbing the girls on the hospital bed. They remembered what it was to be young and in love.

Max and Chloe never even noticed them come in. Locked in their passionate embrace, the entire world had fallen away.

Because nothing else mattered.


	8. Girlfriend

Chloe's chest rose as she took another breath and Max refused to look away. It had taken so long to get to the point where she could admit her interest, after all, she wasn't just going to waste any more time refusing to notice. Chloe's breasts were almost as small as hers, but as she watched their rise and fall Max found herself not having the slightest problem with that.

Weren't small boobs supposed to be less appealing? That was certainly what she had always heard. Or maybe that was just a guy thing and lesbians were different?

 _Dog, I have so much to learn. Well, guess I better keep perving on Chloe. For my education._

Max shifted in her seat by Chloe's side, watching her sleep in the early morning light coming in through the window. The young punk was lying back with the blankets pushed down to her waist, leaving her chest covered only by a hospital gown. It was a far from flattering garment, but it was fairly thin and flimsy, leaving the outline of Chloe's modest breasts clear for Max's newfound enjoyment.

The photographer longed for her camera, but she had learned it had been destroyed during the struggle in the bathroom. Her cell phone's camera would never be worthy of capturing the peaceful, utterly unguarded expression on Chloe's sleeping face. The gentle smile, the uncreased brow. Was it the simple relaxation of sleep or had their newfound intimacy played a part in smoothing away the rage and pain that had made a habit of marring Chloe's beauty?

Max blushed at her own ridiculousness.

 _Yeah Max, you fixed her with your magic kisses. Because you are just that good, even without silly things like experience or any idea what you are doing._

She went back to examining Chloe's body, a much better thing to blush over. This time casting her mind back, to the soft blue glow of heated water along the lines and curves now hidden from her. The smell of chlorine, the rush racing through her in response to a flirtatious smile and the glint of Chloe's navel piercing. Max idly wondered if Chloe had any other piercings. She was such a badass punk now, it would be so like her to get her nipples –

"Horny, or just curious?"

Max almost fell out of her chair.

"H-how did you know exactly what I was….actually, both I guess, no wait I mean….good morning?"

Chloe's grin was as smug as ever, her eyes sparkling with triumph.

"Dude you were practically drooling while staring at my tits. Doesn't take a mind reader."

Max could really only think of one way to deal with such an excess of smug. Leaning forward, she ran one hand through azure locks as the other took Chloe by the chin and tilted her head. Max's lips met Chloe's in a kiss, slow deep and gentle. When she pulled away the expression on Chloe's face could only really be called goofy delight.

"Damn," she whispered. "Girl could get used to waking up to this."

"Even with my gross morning breath?"

"Even with, Morning Max, even with. So I get why you were horny, who wouldn't get worked up at the sight of me in this sweet ass gown, but what were you curious about? You saw pretty much everything at the pool."

"I, I was wondering….if I mean curious about….uhm…"

Chloe's smile was downright predatory now. "What was it you said about complete honesty again, Max?"

 _Fuck._

"Ugh. Fucking….ugh. Okay I was wondering if…..uhm. Okay I got to thinking about…the pool and, and your navel so I thought that maybe….."

"Max, deep breaths. Unless you think you might need mouth to mouth?"

The photographer did her best to centre herself, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath before continuing.

"Thinking about your navel piercing made me wonder if…..you had other piercings as well."

"Yeah Max, of course I do."

Chloe's eyes were sparkling with mischief but Max sat up in excitement anyway.

"Really!?"

"Duh, we pierced each others ears when we were kids. Pay attention Max."

"Oh fuck you," Max laughed.

"Sorry, sorry, I had to! You wanna know if I got my nips pierced, right? One way for you to find out, Mad Max."

Chloe reached to the hem of her gown, grabbing it and beginning to pull as she winked at Max, whose eyes widened.

She would do it, Max knew. All she had to do was ask, or hell even just _nod,_ and Chloe would bare it all for her. Chloe was far from modest, but it was still a big deal for Max. Aside from some furtive internet searches, more about satisfying curiosity then gratification, the only person she had seen naked was herself. And seeing her new girlfriend nude was wildly different from glaring at herself in the mirror with a mix of despair and frustration.

"Maaaaaaax? Earth to Caulfield? Wake up dude, you didn't even notice your phone going off. As cool as your ultra sensitivity to teasing is, I would rather chat then watch you drool. Actually scratch that, the drooling over me thing is pretty hot."

Max shook herself out of her stupor. "Sorry Chloe, I don't think im….ready for that."

"Oh shit dude, I didn't mean to pressure I just…you have the cutest fucking blush. I don't want to push too hard and make you uncomfortable, Max."

"It's okay Chloe. I actually…I actually like when you push. You always know where the line is and where the _real_ line is. How to….to make it new and exciting and a little bit dangerous without it _being_ dangerous. You always take me _exactly_ far enough out of my comfort zone, I guess. So don't…..don't stop taking your flirting that little bit too far."

Chloe was uncharacteristically calm and contemplative. "Dude you…. _really_ trust me, don't you?"

"Yeah Chloe, of course." Max couldn't keep the confusion off her face.

"It's just…having someone take flirting or attraction too far when you don't have a _shitload_ of trust is…hella scary actually. Happened with the dude I lost my virginity to. Went fell creeper. But uh, we, we were talking about my nipples, weren't we? Way cooler subject. So… _Nope._ Afraid I never got 'em pierced. Although after seeing how into the idea you are I totally fucking will. Who fucking thought nerdy little Max would be so into that."

"Kinda…kinda a surprise to me too Chloe. I didn't even fucking know I was into girls until yesterday. I…..barely have any idea what I like. Sorry, I know it can't be easy dating someone who doesn't have their shit figured out."

"Oh fuck that, experimenting with you is gonna be hella fun. We are gonna try out every fucking thing either of us can think of, no matter how kinky or messed up, then we are going to the internet to find out what we missed. It's gonna be fucking awesome."

Max bit her lip and looked away, trying not to smile.

"Yeah," Chloe muttered with a grin. "There's that blush I was talking about."

* * *

After managing to pull herself away from flirting with Chloe, Max finally checked her phone and found a message from Juliet.

JULIET: Max, I did some digging!

JULIET: Another student submitted your entry for the contest.

JULIET: They said it was against the rules and normally wouldn't be allowed, but apparently the student said you finally took your contest entry photo right before the shooting and didn't get the chance to submit it yourself.

JULIET: So under the circumstances they allowed it.

JULIET: If you aren't going to bend the rules of the Everyday Hero's contest for an actual hero then what is the fucking point, right?

ME: Wow Juliet, thank you so much.

ME: Do you know who it was?

JULIET: Sorry Max, everyone is being so tight lipped!

JULIET: Will keep digging and update you later!

Max sighed and passed her phone to Chloe, fidgeting impatiently as the other girl read.

"So, more mysterious bullshit. Do we have any theories why someone is submitting your work and fucking us out of having our fallback photo?"

"Chloe, there is no fucking way I am using that picture again. Nobody but you knows about my powers, so it can't be an attempt to deny us that option. Besides if that was the plan this is a pretty fucking roundabout way of accomplishing it. Why not just burn or rip or hide it? I think whoever submitted it just…wanted my work out there. Maybe they were doing me a favour?"

The punk frowned. "What if it was you?"

Max scratched her head.

"Think about it, timebabe. You keep pulling new powers out of your cute little ass. Something mysterious benefitting you, with an unidentifiable culprit? Im thinking time shenanigans."

"That's….I mean, maybe? It's kinda fucked up that time travel has become our default assumption when we don't have any information."

"Hey, Super Max, that's all on you. You are the complete badass who keeps kicking reality in the balls until it gives you what you want. So hot, by the way. Oh shit, we need to design you a superhero costume. Im thinking spandex. Nice, _tight,_ spandex. Hot pink, of course."

"Ew, no, I would rather fight crime naked."

"Holy shit, that would backfire so hard. People would be rioting just to get you to show up."

Max rolled her eyes. "Yeah right."

" _I_ would be rioting just to get you to show up."

* * *

It took an obscene amount of effort for Max to not melt into a gibbering puddle of anxiety as she waited for her parents. Chloe had been doing her best to help.

"Max you don't….you don't have to come out." She grit her teeth "It's fine."

"Chloe, I know it's not. And I won't _hide_ you. I love you, what we have, even if it is new. I….I'm not coming out to everyone right away but my parents….they deserve the truth. They have always been cool it….it shouldn't go too bad."

"Especially with you in the hospital. Gotta milk that brush with death before they get complacent."

"How did you come out to Joyce?"

"I kinda didn't," Chloe shrugged. "I just didn't bother hiding it. She got the idea eventually."

"Are you shitting me? You just…gayed the place up and hoped for the best?" Max giggled.

"Yeah girl," Chloe's trademark smirk was firmly in place. "We could do the same. Just have your parents walk in on me eating you out and bam, closet burned to the ground."

" _Chloe!_ " Max's blush threatened to ignite her hair.

"Put's things in perspective though, doesn't it? Compared to that a little chat is nothing."

"I…..guess it does. Thank you, Chloe, for your incredibly inappropriate help."

"You aren't gonna…..thank me properly?" That damn grin was still there, matched now by the mischievous glint in her eyes.

Max stood and made her way over to the punk, slipping onto the bed. She reached forward, one hand on each side of Chloe's face and pulled her into a kiss.

Chloe wasted no time deepening the kiss, one hand on the small of Max's back and the other moving up her thigh. She started slipped her tongue into Max's mouth and…..completely failed to notice the doorknob turning.

They didn't pull apart when the door opened. It wasn't until the startled gasp and muttered "What the fuck!" That they realized they had been interrupted.

Fortunately, it was only David, mouth gaping in shock as he stumbled back out and shut the door.

Chloe laughed so hard she started to have trouble breathing while Max squirmed in embarrassment.

"Shit dude, I wasn't serious about getting walked in on! Sorry Max, looks like the cat is out of the bag for sure now. Wait, no! The doe is out of the closet!"

Max rolled her eyes and rushed back to her own bed. There was no way now that she was going anywhere near Chloe before either of her own parents arrived. It was far too risky.

Fortunately, she didn't have to wait long.

Max beamed at her parents as they came in. They hadn't been perfect. Her father's work had taken her away from Chloe and then kept him from home and his lonely daughter far too many nights. Her mother's anxiety was even worse then her own, sometimes swallowing her up entirely and leaving her a nervous wreck.

But they had never been harsh with her. Never been cold or cruel, never let their anger get the better of them. They had always been warm and gentle and loving and oh so supportive. And god only knew how much money they had sacrificed indulging her analogue fetish.

Watching David abuse Chloe…seeing Nathan's madness and getting a glimpse of the role his father played in creating it…..Max had taken her doting parents for granted.

And now she might be about to lose her relationship with them.

As she gathered her nerve to begin, Ryan interrupted her.

"Honey, we need to talk about something. Something important."

 _Holy shit, they know!_

Max and Chloe shared a tense look.

Ryan continued. "I didn't want to bring this up until I knew you were getting better but…..we need to talk about school, and your future."

 _Oh good they don't know. Wait, shit, that means I have to tell them._

"Huh? School?"

"After all that happened, Max, staying in Arcadia Bay…"

Panic stabbed through her and she sat up, eyes going back to Chloe. There was no way she was going to abandon-

Vanessa had no trouble picking up on Max's thoughts. "Chloe is more then welcome to come with us, for as long as poor Joyce is willing to give her up. I know how much being separated hurt you the first time."

Max's wince doubtlessly confused her mother. But she had to get it out. If her parents were opening their home to Chloe they needed to know the truth. And she was never going to get a better opportunity.

"A-Actually…about Chloe…..she…..we…uhm….."

 _Why does this always fucking happen to me?_

Her mother blinked and shared a look with Ryan while Max collected herself.

"What is it honey?"

"Can we put aside the discussion about school for now? There is something important we need to talk about first."

Her father frowned.

 _Shit_

"Something about you and Chloe?" He asked, voice low.

Vanessa shot him a look.

 _Oh god._

"Y-Yeah. Uhm. When I saw Chloe die – almost die, that is, it started me on this…this path to a realization. Seeing what she went through, discovering what I was willing to go through to keep her safe. The, the feeling I get now that we are reunited….the _completeness._ "

Ryan made to speak only to be silenced by his wife's hand gesture.

"I realized I spent five years hiding from the way I felt. And I am _fucking done._ Everyone here deserves the truth, even me."

There was a faint roaring sound making it hard to hear her own voice and Max felt her vision narrowing as her hands shook.

"Mom, Dad," Max whispered. "Chloe isn't my friend. She is my girlfriend. Im….gay."

Chloe's hand was on her shoulder now, gentle and warm. Max fell into it without hesitation.

"Damnit." Her father muttered, heavy brows drawing into a scowl.

Someone dumped a bucket of ice water over her at the same time as they slapped her. And pushed her off a cliff.

" _ **Ryan!**_ " Vanessa's voice was a low, angry hiss Max had never heard before.

"What? You aren't the one out money over this."

"Yes I am you idiot, we share an account. _Marriage,_ remember? But that's not the point. Forget your stupid bet with William, you are terrifying poor Max!"

Ryan looked to his panicking daughter.

"Oh. Oh shit, sweetheart you can't think…..I'm so sorry Max."

Her father rushed to fold her into a hug.

"This doesn't change how your mother or I feel about you in the slightest. I love you, Max. You will always be my little girl."

Max relaxed into the hug, finally feeling the tension drain away. Well, most of it. She wasn't just going to forget his painfully tonedeaf reaction. And Chloe wasn't going to let a reference to her own father pass without comment.

"What's this about a bet? With Dad?"

Vanessa sighed. "William was a very attentive father. And he spent so much time with the both of you together. Towards the, well, the end, he was convinced that there was something…more developing between you."

"What?" Chloe's voice was flat, as close to emotionless as the passionate punk ever got.

 _Yeah, what she said._

Ryan picked up the story. "At first we dismissed it as wishful thinking. The only person he would ever be comfortable giving Chloe away to was Max, after all. And, hah, it might have been the other way around too. With Chloe the only person good enough for Max. He loved you both _so_ much. He could never convince me though, hence the bet. He bet that you two would, at the absolute least, experiment with each other. Most likely, though, he felt that the biggest delay in your relationship would be waiting for the marriage laws to catch up."

"Dad….knew? And he didn't…..didn't tell me?"

"Oh honey," Vanessa said gently. "He didn't want to pressure you – either of you. He was sure he would be there to help, once you were ready."

Chloe closed her eyes and sighed. "He knew. He knew and he didn't…didn't have an issue with it? didn't think…"

Ryan shook his head. "Chloe, William lived for you and Joyce. Children always idealize their parents, and growing to the point where they can see them as their own individuals with their own issues and failings is an important part of childhood. You are smart enough to have realized that, so im sure you have started to doubt your perception of your father. And while you definitely didn't have the full picture, the doting father you knew was absolutely the biggest part of who he was. If he could see you now he would be trying to pick out a tattoo that would match yours. William would have accepted you without hesitation. The minute you stepped a single toe out of the closet he would have been looking for a pride parade to take you to."

Chloe brushed the tears out of her eyes. "This was supposed to be about Max getting all this mushy acceptance shit, not me."

Vanessa smiled and put a hand on Chloe's shoulder. "Sweetie, I thought this whole conversation was about how you two are a package deal now? Now, her problems are your problems. Her "mushy acceptance shit" is your "mushy acceptance shit". Her uncomfortably long family hugs are your uncomfortably long family hugs."

"Heh, yeah I guess. And it's pretty nice – wait, hugs?"

"Yeah Chloe, hugs." Max whispered as she slipped her arms around Chloe. Vanessa was there a moment later, enfolding her in maternal affection. Chuckling, Ryan walked over and joined the family hug.

Hopelessly imprisoned in the Caulfield Cuddle Pile, Chloe smiled.

They were only half right. The hug was very long. But Chloe never found it the slightest bit uncomfortable.

* * *

"Yo mum," Chloe said through gritted teeth. "You got a minute?"

Joyce's voice was tense and frantic over the phone, slipping into panic instantly.

"Oh god are you and Max okay? I _told_ you to stop pissing off the nurses! It might take me a while to get there since I can't get a ride from David. He was on his way over to see you! You could call him for help."

"Holy crap calm the shit down dude, this isn't a big thing. I do call you outside of emergencies."

"No, Chloe, you don't." There was something broken in her mothers voice, a weary emptiness developed by being ground down day after day after day.

"I fucking do! It - wait shit I don't wanna fight."

"What is this about then?"

"You probs already figured out because I was hella obvious even before dad died I guess. But im gay. Just….so fucking into chicks."

"Oh! Oh Chloe you are finally ready to talk to me about this?"

Chloe couldn't fight back the stab of guilt at how touched her mother sounded.

"Y-yeah mum. Sorry I haven't…"

"Oh Chloe, it's okay. I know how strained things have been between us…Although lately…I don't know if this is just wishful thinking, dear, but ever since the shooting and reuniting with Max I have got the impression that…."

Joyce sounded so…pathetically hopeful. Like a civil fucking conversation with her own child was winning the lottery. Chloe couldn't stand it for another second.

"I really miss having an actual relationship with my mother?"

"Yes…that was the hope."

"Yeah, well, im not gonna say I am done being a bratty bitch or anything but, like, maybe I can….be _less_ of a bratty bitch."

"Chloe I…you have had your reasons, even when your behaviour has been…. All I want is to be a family, Chloe. If you would be willing…..I have been wanting to go to family counselling. All _three_ of us. Me, you and David."

Chloe groaned. "It can't just be you and me? Fine, fine, I can…..put up with Step-soldier for a session or two but…don't expect me to be opening up with him there."

"All I ask is that you show up and put in an effort, Chloe."

"Cool. But, okay the reason I actually called and came out and all was because I have news."

"Yes?"

"Turns out Max is pretty fucking gay too. And now we….uhm. We are gonna be gay together. By going out. On dates. As girlfriends."

The silence on the other end of the line was getting more troubling with every passing second. There hadn't even been a shocked gasp or the _clunk_ of a dropped phone. Chloe continued to stew until there was a loud _pop_ followed by a very faint splashing.

"Are you…..what the fuck mum are you….. _having champagne?!_ "

* * *

Chloe put her phone away as she returned to the hospital room.

"It took some doing Max, but I managed to convince mum to accept us going out."

Ryan stood, reaching into his pocket for his wallet.

"William would say that him dying doesn't get me out of having to pay. A bet is a bet, after all."

He pulled out fifty dollars, handing it to a surprised Chloe.

"It's either you or Joyce, and this way you can put it towards your first date with Max. William would have loved that, the clever bastard."

Chloe chuckled as she accepted the money.

"Five years dead and Dad is still looking out for me."

Max frowned and looked to her parents.

"Uhm…speaking of money. How much is this setting us back? I know medical care can be…obscenely expensive."

 _We have_ _ **some**_ _money saved up, but I have been here two weeks now and had a dozen surgeries._

Ryan sighed. "Oh, we still haven't had that conversation, have we?"

 _Uh oh._

"Dude," Chloe interrupted. "Remember how Dana and Juliet mentioned that the Prescotts were in PR damage control mode, throwing money into everything they can think of which might make people like them?"

"Don't fucking tell me…."

Vanessa nodded. "Paying for your medical care is _the least_ they can do after unleashing that monster on the world."

"Ugh, I think I'm gonna puke. We are really taking their money?"

"Money is money, Maximus. Pretty sure my broke-ass family would be bankrupted just paying for all the pudding I keep stealing."

"They paid for my _surgery?_ That just makes me feel so…."

 _Violated._

"Max, the Prescott's downfall is guaranteed." Her fathers voice was calm, confident. "They are throwing their money around because it is the only move they have. This is just a death rattle. Us taking their money won't change that. It just means your college fund survives this."

"I know, Pop, I'm just…not as practical as you."

Chloe nodded. "Yeah, you are a total softie. Honestly I have been trying to think of it as us robbing them. We chose to go into that bathroom, after all. Now the Pisscock's are fucked, we are heroes with hella pudding and those fuckers are paying out the ass."

"Mmmmm. That kinda work. Thanks Chloe."

"No problem Max. Hey, there is this statue of some Prescott in a park not too far away. We could go deface it when you are feeling up for the trip?"

"Chloe, you _always_ know what to say."

* * *

Vanessa slipped her arm around Ryan's as they left their daughter and her friend - her _girl_ friend to their flirtatious criminal plotting.

"Sorry for hushing you so many times, dear, but she had to say it herself."

"I did figure that out…..eventually." Her husband replied. "How long will I be paying for the "damnit" line, do you think?"

"Hard to say, she has changed so much. Back in Seattle she would have sulked for a week before putting together a photo collage to explain how she felt. But being with Chloe seems to agree with her. She communicates with words now, without needing to be prompted or anything!"

"She has certainly grown," Ryan agreed.

"There is one thing I don't understand, though."

"What's that, dear?"

"I thought your bets with William were always for five dollars?"

Ryan glanced down in that way he did when he was hoping his beard would hide his blush.

"Well," he muttered. "What the hell kind of date can you get with five dollars, even in this little town?"

Vanessa smiled and snuggled in closer to her husbands side.

 **AN: Finally a chance to upload this to . The site has been beyond uncooperative. This chapter was finished and uploaded to Ao3 almost a month ago. since then I haven't been able to log on here. Sorry for the wait and if anyone still gives a shit, thank you for reading!**


	9. Future

"Oh yeah Maxxy, I _totally_ get it! I was thinking the same thing just the other week!"

Max sincerely doubted that. Courtney didn't seem the type to have such strong opinions on the Ninth Doctor.

"So, uhm, thanks for bringing me my course work. Although you didn't have to DO it all for me….."

"It's no problem Maxxy. I'm always happy to help one of my best friends!"

Over in the other bed, Chloe's eye started twitching.

"So, uhm, this was a really nice visit and it was great to see you but im getting kinda tired…."

"Oh did you need another pillow? Blanket?" Courtney smiled so hopefully that Max almost felt bad.

"Thanks, but I just need to rest."

Courtney looked down at her, stepford smile not budging an inch.

"Alone," Max emphasized.

Courtney turned to Chloe with a raised eyebrow. "Well, go on then. Maxxy wants to be-"

"Get the fuck out before I set you on fire."

"Catch you later Maxxy!" Courtney started leaving with the first word, the door closing on the last.

" _Thank you_ , Chloe! What on earth did she want?!"

Courtney had arrived as visiting hours started, just after Max and Chloe woke. In the hour and a half she had been there, she had never quite gotten around to explaining _why._ It would have taken half a minute to drop off her schoolwork, but Courtney had insisted on striking up one halting, awkward conversation after another. All about vapid topics neither Max nor Chloe had any knowledge of or interest in.

"No idea dude, I thought for sure she would wander off once you started nerding out all over her. But she just kept agreeing with whatever you said."

"It was so creepy."

"You didn't like having someone suck up to you, _Maxxy_?"

The photographer shuddered. "Don't get me started on the weird nickname. You go through seven better nicknames then that each day! Courtney and I have barely even had a conversation and now she just…acts like we are friends? What the hell?"

"Max, I barely understand normal people. Don't ask me to figure out Vortex robots."

"Chloe, at this point im pretty sure there's no such thing as a normal person. Especially in this town.

"You take that the fuck back, Caulfield. If there's no normal there's nothing for me to rebel against. And flip off while doing a wheelie on a motorbike. Wearing a leather jacket. With you on the back. Wearing nothing _but_ a leather jacket."

The punk was staring blankly into space, a goofy smile in her face as she got lost in her own perverted imagination.

 _Note to self, buy a leather jacket._

"That fantasy kinda got away from you Chlo."

"Eh, a surprising number of my fantasies wind up with you wearing nothing but a leather jacket."

Max's embarrassment threatened to consume her, but she was beginning to adapt.

"Nothing surprising about that," she managed to flirt back.

Chloe shot up and out of bed with a speed that would have crippled her with pain just a few days ago.

"Bold, Maximus! Have you finally realised how hot you are?"

"It's a work in progress Chloe. I might still…..need convincing." Max brushed her hair back, just to have something to do with the hands that always turned into sweating, fidgeting messes when she tried to flirt with Chloe.

Her efforts paid off, though, her girlfriend looking down at her with a grin.

"I bet I can do something about that."

Chloe slipped onto the foot of her bed before turning to face Max and going on all fours. Eyes alight with mischief, she started crawling up its length. With each inch covered, her grin growing more predatory. By the time she had reached Max's torso it was downright depraved. Max squirmed. The light in her eyes, the way Chloe was basically _climbing_ her, the focus on her face as she stared down at Max's breasts from so close. Max was having trouble breathing. It was all _doing things_ to her.

It shouldn't have been such a big deal. No matter how hard Chloe tried, her gaze couldn't penetrate two layers of blankets, a hospital gown and the bandages still around Max's chest. It was nearly completely overwhelming. If her girlfriend backed off a little bit there was a chance Max could regain her composure and-

Chloe leaned down and kissed her right breast.

It had to be the briefest, gentlest peck in the history of kisses. A quick lean, a brush of lips, then Chloe was back to climbing her way up the bed, towards her. It was still too much, and the breath Max had been holding in escaped in a soft sound halfway between a startled gasp and an eager moan.

There was a gentleness in Chloe's expression as she finally finished her long climb, almost reverent as she smiled down at Max from so very close. The calm was somewhat infectious, Max's hands able to stop fidgeting for the first time in what felt like an eternity, even if she couldn't seem to stop rubbing her thighs together.

Chloe leaned down until her hair brushed Max's face, lips at Max's ear and whispered.

"You are hella hot, nerd."

And then she was just gone, bouncing back to her own bed with a grin wide enough to devour the Cheshire cat. Leaving Max unable to decide between being outraged at her girlfriends teasing, relieved Chloe had backed off, moping about the loss of Chloe's warmth or simply ridiculously horny.

Ten thousand years later, once Max had recovered enough to attempt human speech, she sat up in bed and levelled a glare at her smug girlfriend.

"You fucking tease. How was that supposed to convince me?"

Chloe rolled her eyes. "My methods are as mysterious as they are effective, Max Attack."

"Man, that's a pretty half assed evasion even for you."

Chloe snickered. "Okay, yeah, I kinda had to abort when I realized my actual plan would get us swarmed by nurses. I would totally rock your world even when you are hooked up to that heart monitor, but you really aren't ready for an audience."

Well, Max couldn't exactly deny _that._

Her phone's alert tone distracted Max from their flirting. Picking it up off the bedside table, Max found a new message.

JULIET: I am the greatest student journalist in the history of Blackwell.

Max frowned as she began typing.

ME: Congratulations?

JULIET: I know who submitted your photo to the contest!

ME: Wow, who?

JULIET: Say it Max.  
JULIET: Say "You are the greatest student journalist in the history of Blackwell."

"Oh for fucks sake Juliet."

"What's up Max?"

Max passed her phone to Chloe, who read Juliet's messages with a raised brow. Grinning, she started tapping away. By the time Max realized what she was up to, the message had been sent and it was too late.

"Chloe what…what did you say?"

The phone alert announced Juliet's response and Chloe handed the phone back smugly.

ME: You have the greatest tits of any student journalist in the history of Blackwell.

JULIET: Wow, way gayer then I was expecting but I will take it!  
JULIET: Your photo was submitted by the one…..the only…  
JULIET: Victoria Chase!  
JULIET: Can you believe it? Fucking Victoria!

"Wow, I really can't."

 _Victoria. Is this…some sort of olive branch? No, Victoria really isn't the type. I definitely have to talk to her. I have been meaning to do something about that whole….Victoria situation._

ME: Thanks so much for finding out, Juliet!  
ME: Sounds like I have a conversation with Victoria coming up D:  
ME: Do you have her number?

JULIET: Sure Max, but you might want to wait a bit.  
JULIET: Judging by the bottle Victoria threw at Alyssa 20 min ago, she isn't really up for much of a conversation.

Max blinked down at her phone. It wasn't even 11AM!

ME: Thanks again, Juliet.

"Chloe, it was _Victoria_ who submitted my photo."

"What?! "Bitch Queen Of Blackwell" Victoria? "Would Be Hot If She Wasn't Such A Dick" Victoria? "Wanna Take The Stick Out Of Her Ass Just To Spank Her With It" Victoria? "Really Needs A-""

"Chloe, insecurities."

"Right, shit, sorry. So, uhm…we got plans today?"

"Uhm, the usual doctors and nurses poking at me, that Big Important Conversation my parents wanted to have yesterday, a bit of making out…okay maybe a lot, and I think that's it. Why?"

Chloe was shifting awkwardly as she arrived at the topic she had been working towards.

"About that conversation with your parents…..what are you going to say?"

Max scratched her head. "Well, that depends on what they say. Obviously."

Chloe huffed out an angry breath. "Dude, it was pretty obvious they want you back in Seattle-"

"- I am _not_ abandoning you again Chloe."

Chloe smiled, partly at the reassurance, but even more at the speed with which it was offered.

"I know, Super Max. Together forever, for reals this time. I just meant…..like where? Where are we gonna _be_ together forever. I kinda figure we should talk about our plans before you have that conversation with your folks."

" _Oh._ I never…good point Chlo I never thought of that. Uhhm, well. You need to reconcile with your mother before we leave, plus we didn't bleed for this town just to leave it right after, right? We _saved a town!_ We have to spend at least a few months wandering around bragging to each other. Just pointing out trees and buildings and people and mentioning that _we_ did that. _We_ are the reason all this is still standing."

Chloe's smile shifted to something calmer, more contemplative.

"Yeah we did, didn't we? Pair of total badasses. We saved this shitpit! Guess I can tolerate living in it a bit longer. I uh…I have to make a call, one sec."

"Oh, uhm, bye?" Max waved as Chloe hurried out of the room with her phone.

* * *

Chloe looked down at her phone, biting her lip. Her finger hovered over a number she had four missed calls from. Taking a deep breath, she pressed down and held the phone to her ear, waiting as it rang.

She didn't have to wait long, the answer came quick in a tired voice.

"Hey Mrs Grant," Chloe responded. "So, I have had time to think and yeah, alright, I won't make more trouble for Blackwell. With the press or legally. But I have one condition. Wait, no, _two_ conditions."

* * *

Chloe had been acting strangely ever since her super-secret phone call earlier, but Max hadn't had much opportunity to confront her about it. The time before her parents arrival was spent arranging arguments in her head, reminding herself that she was eighteen so they couldn't make her go, and of course panicking.

When Ryan and Vanessa filed in, Max still wasn't ready. She smiled awkwardly as they settled into the awful hospital chairs and exchanged pleasantries.

"So, Max, we have all been putting off this conversation. But it is one we have to have. We need to discuss your future, and Blackwell."

It was hard to believe that her father had begun an almost identical conversation in an almost identical way just a few months ago. There was so much more grey in his beard now…. Having his daughter the victim of a school shooting while in another state had left it's mark on him.

Max fought down a stab of guilt. She _chose_ this.

And now she was going to stress him out more.

"Right, my future. And Blackwell. I don't, uhm, I don't want to leave. I know that…..they don't have a photography teacher anymore and the one they did have was a psychotic predator who only started teaching to get access to girls so he could abuse them and the administration was horrifically corrupt and yeah _okay_ I got an almost fatal wound which leaves me with a permanent injury and…"

 _Wait, shit I am talking_ _ **myself**_ _out of this._

"…..and I am going to stay and graduate. Because _fuck all that._ I _chose_ this school and I have made some good friends here. I _like_ it here and I am _not_ letting Jefferson and the Prescott's chase me away."

Ryan took a deep breath. "Max, Arcadia Bay is doomed."

 _What the shit? Does dad know about the Storm?!_

Max traded a panicked look with Chloe.

"I have seen it happen more than once, hell I have written stories about it. A small town loses its main industry – for Arcadia Bay, that was fishing. Those who can get out, do, the way we did. Those who can't get out do the best they can, like how Joyce has been working day after day in a diner she is so much better then. And the kids stuck in a town as it enters its death spiral either work towards getting out or lose focus and spend most of their time getting drunk or high, like Chloe."

"Errr, what, uh, what on earth are you talking about? Hah, I don't even know what drugs are. What's a marijuana?"

Ryan's gaze was unamused as it bored into Chloe.

"Once a town enters a death spiral it's almost never recovers, and Arcadia Bay's has been going on for more than a decade now. In desperate times, people reach for whatever they can get. The Prescott's have always been a blight on this town, and everyone knows it. But with no other options even the best of people have no choice but to drink from that poisoned well. And so the town goes from tolerating the Prescott's corruption to enabling it, then to _encouraging_ it. Because they are the only game in town. But that kind of thing just can't be sustained, it creates a Nathan Prescott who severs that lifeline once and for all. Soon Sean Prescott will realize he can't buy forgetfulness and decide to move on, taking his dirty money with him. And the institutions he has been propping up with it, like Blackwell, die."

"And with Blackwell dead, there is one less reason for people to come to the Bay, no rich students eating at Two Whales and such, so the "death spiral" gets even deathier and more spirally."

Ryan nodded at her words. "You understand then."

"It doesn't matter." Her hands clenched in her blankets as she spoke. " _ **I**_ decide when I am done with Arcadia Bay. Not Nathan, not Mark Jefferson, not Sean Prescott, not some bullet or economics or the bluest butterfly in the goddamn world. Not a new job in Seattle."

Max's father looked down at her, blue eyes assessing her calmly. Then, slowly, his thick beard was split by a gentle smile. Reaching forward, he placed a gentle hand on Max's shoulder as he lent forward to plant a kiss on her forehead while Chloe watched with poorly disguised envy.

"Ryan," Vanessa said with a frown. "You can't _approve_? This town….it….. _they shot my baby_."

Max reached her arms out, her mother not hesitating to rush forward and enfold her into an embrace. Ryan put his hand on his wife's back, rubbing gently.

"Look at how _confident_ she is, how strong. She has never been this determined before in her life. Our little Max is growing up. And growing into….."

"A total badass!"

"Yes, thank you Chloe. Out little Max is growing into a "total badass". I don't know what she found here." He glanced at Chloe, who fidgeted awkwardly. "But it is clearly what she needed. I'm so proud of her."

Max blushed bright enough to light the room.

"I'm not…You make it sound like I left all my shyness behind in Seattle and became this whole new person. Okay, I have grown a lot since coming here but I'm still me. Still your Max. I can't even call Victoria to thank her for submitting my photo. The Max Caulfield Phone Phobia still in effect. I'm still your little girl, just…..strong enough to survive Arcadia Bay without you guys."

Ryan nodded, but Vanessa was frowning in thought.

"Who is Victoria?"

"Oh, uhm….it's kinda hard to-"

"Max's nemesis."

" _Chloe!_ I have barely been here three months. You can't develop a nemesis in three months."

"You can when you are as awesome as Max fucking Caulfield. People get jealous."

Turning to Max's confused parents while the young photographer shook her head, Chloe continued.

"Y'know how for every person out there there is an evil version of them wandering around?"

Vanessa blinked in confusion. "No?"

"It's true, it's science, look it up. Victoria Chase is the evil version of Max. Take everything good and special about her and twist it, corrupt it, and you get Victoria. She is," Chloe paused dramatically before narrowing her eyes and continuing in a hiss. "The _Anti-Max_."

Max rolled her eyes as her mother giggled. "She is just another photography student, one who gets _way_ too competitive. That photography contest I won, where someone submitted my work when I was injured and was going to miss the deadline? My friend Juliet did some digging and figured out it was her."

Ryan stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Well, at least she is an honest nemesis. This Juliet though, would that be Juliet Watson, who is writing for the school paper?"

"Uhm, yeah. You…..read my high school's paper?"

"Ever since my daughter got shot, yes. Her most recent article was good, but she is only half done."

"Dad," Max groaned. "Don't go all reporter with my friends…"

He shuffled about and grinned sheepishly. "Hey, the girl has potential. All she needs to do now is follow the money, it may be an old, overused saying but it got to be that way for a reason. Not even Wells could drink away the amount of money the Prescott's payed him, there is a lot of money out there. Once you account for every cent you can, _that_ is when the story is done.

"Okay pop, thanks for the lecture on journalism. I'm sure Chloe is going to put it to good use one day."

The punk in the other bed gave the room a sarcastic thumbs up while Max giggled at her fathers glare.

"Relax Dad, I will tell Juliet, okay?"

"Thank you dear."

Once the Caulfield's left, time passed in comfortable banter until Joyce arrived twenty minutes later. She offered Max and her daughter a weary smile as she made her way into the Hospital room in her diner uniform, handing Styrofoam containers to the hospitalized girls.

Max accepted hers with a comical shudder of gratitude, opening it up while her eyes shone with wonder.

 _Waffles._ _ **Joyce**_ _waffles._

"Thank you so much, Joyce."

"Yeah calling the crap they serve here "food" is an insult to honest bacon everywhere." Chloe said with a nod.

"Nrgh Chlreey esss," Max took the blessed waffle out of her mouth. "Uhm, sorry everyone. Chloe, this isn't just "food". This is _Joyce food_. A different tier entirely. Hospital food is way down the bottom just above prison food. In the middle you have regular food. A few tiers up you finally get to Joyce food."

Chloe didn't bother stopping her bacon feast to respond, simply shrugging and rolling her eyes.

"You have _definitely_ spoiled her." Max said to a blushing Joyce.

"And _this_ is why it is a delight to have you back in our lives, Max. Too bad it is taking so long to rub off on Chloe…" Joyce replied with a smile.

Suddenly Chloe was bouncing up and down in her seated position on her bed, legs flailing as she pointed emphatically at her mother and chewed maniacally. Finally gulping down her food, Chloe smiled smugly.

"Bitch, please, I am _way_ ahead of you." Pulling out her phone, she passed it to her mother. "Check the messages. Just not any of the ones from Frank. Or Rachel. Or from…..actually fuck it this is a terrible idea, I can just tell you."

Snatching her phone back, Chloe stretched out and opened her mouth to continue when the door burst open and David stomped into the room.

"Joyce? The folks at the diner said you would be heading here after your shift. You won't believe what I heard at work! Chloe-"

"Dude!" The punk interrupted. "Shut the fuck up, it's my news!" Her still present grin took enough of the sting out of her words that David complied, even looking a bit embarrassed at having almost stolen Chloe's big moment.

"Well, Blackwell's going to shit and the fuckers at the top are scared of everyone suing, so Mrs Grant wanted to know what it would take to buy me off. Now, it took some doing, but after fierce negotiations I managed to talk her into accepting me back into Blackwell. Guess I'm going back to school. Full ride too, won't cost a dime."

Joyce was staring at Chloe, mouth gaping open like a fish, while Max fidgeted nervously and David frowned.

"Talk her into? Mrs Grant said she had to promi-"

" _Fierce. Negotiations_."

David huffed out a breath and shook his head. "I mean, congratulations?"

"That's better."

Max stopped fidgeting, getting up to cross the room and sit beside her girlfriend. "Chloe…..are we…..will we…."

"Share classes? Yup. They still don't know what the fuck they are gonna do about photography class, but we have a couple in common."

"We get to be study buddies?"

Chloe snorted out a laugh. "Sure, nerd."

Joyce had quietly made her way to her daughters side, biting her lip. "Chloe…please, please, tell me you will take this seriously and –"

"Not fuck this up like I do everything? Jesus, Joyce, at least wait for me to fuck up before you give me shit for it. Hah, I actually thought you might be *proud* for once. Like, we were getting back to…..But no it's-"

"I didn't say that, Chloe! Im…im sorry for giving you that impression. I am so so happy and proud and all…..I just….don't want you to lose this opportunity. You have made mistakes in the past – we a _ll_ have, in this family."

"It's cool, mum, sorry for uh, losing my shit there."

Joyce smiled at Chloe, resting a hand on her shoulder as she sat down on the bed beside her, on the other side from Max.

"So, what classes are you taking?"

* * *

After Max stepped out into the hall, snarking that Chloe got a secret hallway phone call and that it was now her turn, she started the call and raised her phone to her ear.

"Hey Juliet, it's Max. Uhhm, first my dad, he is a reporter. He wanted me to mention that he likes what you have been writing, that it's a good start. But he says you need to "follow the money". Account for the money Wells accepted and...I dunno that's the real story?

"Wow, that's...interesting advice. Don't suppose he had any specifics?"

"Not really, sorry. Anyway the main reason I called...remember when you asked if I had anything to say? About Blackwell and the shooting and everything?

"Yeah, Max?! Just gimme one sec to turn on my recording app….." The voice on the other end of the line was eager, almost frantic.

"….okay, go!"

Max took a deep breath, steeling her resolve.

"I have been thinking a lot, since...the shooting. I won't deny that I have been angry...and afraid. Part of me wants to indulge that, get even. Take my chance to...tear into the school. With the law, the media, whatever. Or just...leave. Turn my back on this place and never come back. But that...it's how the Prescott's think. Something wrongs you, burn it down. Take any edge you can, make sure you get what you want. But I don't want to be like that. Blackwell is a community, and like any community you get out of it what you put in. That's something the Prescott's will never understand. Even in the short time I was here, I made so many great friends. Blackwell...wasn't the school I hoped it would be. But maybe it can be? We are members of this school, maybe if we focus on what we want it to be we can make it that. Build the school we deserve. I know a lot of people are down on the school now. It is in a low point, and it kinda deserves to be. But if we run off now, if we sue or leave or whatever...do we deserve any better? If we aren't invested in this school, this community, is it any wonder it turned against us? Our school was supposed to be better, to show us how to be mature...but "supposed to" never really counts for much in this life." Max exhaled in a huff, trying to gather her thoughts.

"Blackwell failed us, but that doesn't mean we should fail it. I won't be suing or leaving or seeking punishment for anyone other then Jefferson and Nathan. I am going back to class as soon as I can. I want to sleep in my dorm, hang out with my friends, get the best grades I can, and graduate. Like I came here to. I can't tell anybody else what to do, but I hope other people take this chance to think about what they really want."

"Wow, Max, some amazing stuff there! I know it's rude, but I really wanna get to work on this story..."

Max smiled. "Goodbye, Juliet."

"Bye Max!"

* * *

Dr Michael Burke nervously tapped his fingers against the case on his lap, trying not to look _too_ out of place in the expensively decorated lobby. He had been born poor, and even years after having worked his way up from that nothing he doubted he would ever really get comfortable with the displays of wealth his employer insisted on.

There had been no shortage of time to acclimate himself, as he worked through his scholarship among similarly privileged people in a school he would never have been able to attend without his benefactor, but the culture shock was still there. One never truly stopped feeling the pains of childhood.

The orphan sometimes wondered where he would be, _who_ he would be, if not for the lifeline that scholarship had been. He wasn't blind, of course. Michael knew the scholarship his employer had offered him so long ago had more to do with securing talent as early as possible. It was hardly a coincidence that he had gone straight from graduation to the job he had held for the past ten years.

But that scholarship had still made all the difference. Given a child resigned to mediocrity and crushing poverty everything he needed to truly live up to his potential. So what if he was bought and sold? Sooner or later everyone was somebodies bitch. At least he had chosen who was holding his leash.

Besides, that scholarship had been just the beginning. The things he had learned since starting his work made his doctorate, the years spent working his ass off in medical school and unravelling the deepest workings of the human body, seem like nothing. He had learned that there was something, greater then wealth, more then intellect. Hidden at the edges of society and in the cracks of reality.

 _Power._

For all his difficulty connecting with his employers affluence, that was one thing they were able to see eye to eye on, with ease.

The expensively dressed receptionist behind her expensive desk looked to him with an empty smile masked by expensive makeup.

"Mr Prescott will see you now."

Dr Burke walked into the office without bothering to acknowledge the woman. There would be a new one next week. Constant contact with Mr Prescott was not something to be born lightly.

"Report." Mr Prescott demanded, as always wasting no time with formalities. Burke wouldn't have it any other way. Placing the case on the hard dark wood of his employers desk, he opened it and removed several files and a package.

"Our investigation into the incident at lab 7 is complete. Eleven bodies recovered."

They both knew what that meant. The perpetually sour expression on Mr Prescott's face managed to worsen, somehow.

"Donnelly is following several leads," Burke continued.

Reaching the important part of his report, he opened the package and took out a vial.

"More thorough testing has confirmed the results of our preliminary examinations. The manifestation occurred, but…..our aims were subverted."

He had to tread carefully. The subject of Mr Prescott's son's failure and ultimate fate was a rather sore one. Although Mr Prescott held nothing back in his brutal diatribes against the boy, that was very much a privilege reserved exclusively for him. Any mere employee daring to criticize a Prescott would soon find their life getting very, very unpleasant. And possibly much shorter.

"The subject is contained and observation is continuing. All signs indicate a perfect candidate."

He handed the vial to his employer with an almost religious reverence, trying to avoid disturbing the dark red liquid.

"We will, of course, require a great deal more for our purposes. Acquisition will not present any difficulties."

Mr Prescott smiled.

Burke shuddered. In all the time he had worked for the man….he had never seen that happen.

The label on the vial was clearly visible as Mr Prescott held it up to the light.

 _ **Subject 17: Caulfield, Maxine.**_


	10. Damage

Max had to strain her eyes to make anything out in the dim candlelight of the underground room. This wasn't the kind of place that had ever felt the warmth of the sun.

It would be so much easier if she could just _think_. But everything was so dull and foggy. Max knew she should care, should be terrified of the thin tube which had been feeding a steady stream of some liquid into her body through the IV, but she just couldn't seem to get worked up about it.

She was leaning back, half way between standing up and lying down on the sturdy metal frame to which she was securely bound. Thick metal at her wrists, ankles, knees, elbows, neck and waist left her without even enough freedom to thrash and jerk in her bonds.

She was also naked.

That should have been particularly troubling. But in the muddy fog of her weary mind, not even the thought that she should be concerned lasted long. It faded to mist and a glassy emptiness came over her eyes.

Time passed strangely as the flame of the candle wavered and sputtered. First going in a great rush, the world buzzing around her as she drifted, only for single moment no different from any other to stop and hang for what seemed like an eternity. And then drifting slowly and lazily forward.

Things happened. People came and went, poked and prodded. The IV was disconnected and sense started to return, oh so gradually. The fear finally came, then, all-consuming and almost comfortingly familiar. This wasn't the first dungeon she had been drugged and held in. Looming men with dark, shadowed faces looked down at her with cold, empty eyes. Unlike last time there was no lust or satisfaction in their gaze as they surveyed her naked, bound body. You had to see someone as human in order to enjoy degrading them. They looked at her with the calm, businesslike pragmatism of a carpenter looking at a piece of wood.

As clarity returned she struggled, fought with all of her non-existent strength. They discussed her attempted resistance calmly, unhurried. The drugs were suggested, then dismissed. Instead they simply hurt her, one man stepping forward with a long, shiny object. A spark of electricity dancing between two prongs, interrupted by flesh as the device was pressed into her arm.

There was no more room for observation. For thought, analysis or even fear. There was only pain, agony surging through her with an all-consuming immediacy which made Max miss even the dull oblivion of whatever drug they had used to keep her docile.

Once Max's voice was too ragged to keep screaming, her muscles too tormented to respond to her brains signals, they stepped back, the cruel device drawn blessedly away. Max lay, trembling, as needle after needle was inserting into her body. Warm red blood drawn away through plastic tubes, drop after drop.

So much.

Too much.

If this kept up there wouldn't be any left for her.

The men were talking among themselves, faces smiling and hands patting backs. There was the distinctive pop of a cork as celebration began and Max knew that leaving enough for her was not in any way a concern.

The draining continued and Max trembled.

Then woke, scrambling to the edge of her hospital bed to vomit out seemingly everything she had ever eaten. Chloe asked questions, muttered condolences, then simply held her for hours as she wept.

* * *

Chloe did her best to keep her voice steady and even, doing nothing to betray the tension that had been growing steadily over the last few days.

"Max, I really think you should reconsider the offer."

Her girlfriend didn't move from her place, head nestled comfortably between Chloe's breasts.

"I _can't_ see the hospital's psychiatrist Chloe. Most of the stuff I am traumatized by technically didn't happen."

"Doesn't mean it didn't fuck you up, Max. Erased timeline or not, it happened _to you_."

Max sighed. "Yeah, but I can't exactly _say_ that, can I? At least not without getting committed."

"So make shit up, lie your ass off. Find something close enough to what you suffered and that they can believe. Max, this shit is _not okay._ Your nightmares are getting hella scary."

Max didn't respond, staying still in Chloe's embrace while her girlfriend continued.

"You are the strongest person I know, Max, but when shit gets too hard you….you retreat. You just lock yourself down and cut yourself off. Like….when dad died and you got carted off to Seattle. You cut yourself off and neither of us dealt with things and it fucked us up for _years_."

Max shimmied her way up the bed until her head was on the pillow, her big blue eyes looking into Chloe's from only an inch or so away.

"I will _try_ and think of something that could work and if I come up with something I will use it, but I have one condition."

Chloe nodded. With any luck it would be something sexual.

"Go with Joyce and David, like they asked."

Chloe groaned. Of course it was the one damn thing she least wanted to do.

"Seriously, Max? You are going to condemn me to family counselling with David?"

"Hey, if I have to deal with my issues so do you. Mental health for everyone."

Why did she have to be so fucking close? With those fucking eyes, so loving and sincere?

"Dude, going to family therapy with him means labelling him family. You do get that right?"

Max nodded, eyes unchanging.

"Just give it a try. One session. If the therapist is being an asshole or…..siding with David or if it just isn't working, you don't have to go back."

Chloe grit her teeth. As odious as the idea of pouring her heart out while David was in the same room was, if it was the price for getting Max to seek help with the nightmares that had plagued her every night for the last few days she would gladly pay it.

Only Max fucking Caulfield could talk her into this.

"Alright, fine, guess I can use it as a chance to mock David in front of an audience. Could be fun."

Her girlfriends face lit up and once more Chloe couldn't believe how lucky she was. Every damn day Max just got cuter.

"To getting better together," Max said and leaned forward.

The kiss was slow, gentle and long.

* * *

The sun was bright, warm and strong. Birds happily tweeted out whatever inane bullshit birds considered worth communicating (probably boasts about how good they were at bird sex, if Chloe's understanding of nature wasn't too far off the mark). Insects lazily drifted here and there. The grass was green, the trees were leafy and above all else the street outside the family therapists office was _not a fucking hospital._

Chloe breathed in deep, delighting in her first whiff of free air in what felt like an eternity. This was probably going to go shit, but it might be worth it just to get out of the hospital for a bit. She was pretty much recovered, now, and getting dangerously close to the point where the Doctors would have her literally thrown out. She really should have left the hospital a week ago, but sharing a room with Max was simply too great an opportunity to pass up.

Not to mention the way letting Max out of her sight left her with a tense, queasy, uncomfortable twisting in her stomach. As if this bright, beautiful future they had stumbled into was some sort of dream that could vanish in an instant. Max had turned almost everything in her shit life to gold, and was now diligently working on that last little bit by forcing her to deal with her family problems. Being away from her was fucking terrifying, as if all the changes she had wrought were a house of cards she had been holding together, doomed to fall apart in her absence.

Chloe snorted and rolled her eyes, forcing away her paranoid melodrama. She was getting dangerously close to being the clingiest bitch in the universe. Striding forward confidently, Chloe found her mother and the step-soldier waiting by the door to the office.

Guilt stabbed at her as soon as she saw the pathetic relief on her mother's tired face.

 _Fuck, I really should have texted once Max talked me into this._

"What up, party people?" Chloe greeted, causing her mother's eyes to twinkle in amusement and David's perpetual frown to deepen.

"Chloe, thank you so much for coming." Joyce said.

"Y'know me," Chloe replied. "Anything to keep the peace. 'Cause I am all about that fam."

* * *

"SHUT THE FUCK UP you goddamned DICKTATOR!" Chloe roared at David, hands clenching painfully around the chair she had picked up to throw.

"Go on you ungrateful little shit, throw it. You will just fuck it up the way you do everything in your goddamn life. Escalate things to violence and just _see_ how that ends for you." David snarled, standing on the other side of the room.

In the chair between them, Joyce wept.

The self-proclaimed therapist, who had explained that his main purpose in early sessions was to observe, sat behind a desk taking notes.

Chloe slammed the chair back to the floor. "Yeah, you would fucking love that wouldn't you. An excuse to give me another black eye. That's all you have, isn't it? Fucking violence. Don't know how to parent, don't know how to cook your own fucking food, don't know how to _do your goddamn job and keep Rachel safe_."

At this point David was trembling with rage, hands clenched into fists with the effort of not striking out physically.

"Better to fail at doing the right thing then succeed at doing the right thing YOU FUCKING PUNK! Drugs, graffiti, stealing, you oughta take a good hard look at yourself before you think you are fit to judge _anyone_ else. I might not be perfect but I served my country! Combat changes -"

"Oh holy hella fucking _shit_ we get it! You served in the waaaaaaaaar! Congratulations, you shot at brown people for oil! Guess that totally makes it okay to stomp your army boots into my life and start swinging your dick around like anyone is fucking impressed! All I fucking had in the world was my mother and my home and you just _had to_ fucking take them for yourself! And then you fucking judge me for taking the only fucking option to deal with it? I might be a punk fuck up but at least I am still young enough that it is endearing instead of revolting, and young enough to bounce back! _You?_ You are fucking _done_. A bitter old asshole who uses military training and a position of authority to take your war rage out on teenage girls. It's _literally your job_ to make people feel safe yet all you do is terrorize and intimidate! Congratulations, dozens of teenagers live in fear of you! I had to steal a goddamn gun just to feel safe in my own home."

David's rage seemed to leave him all at once and he fell heavily into his chair.

"I…..I never meant for any of that, Chloe. It….No one ever…..explained how to be a father. Emotional stuff doesn't come easy to me and…I fell back on what I know. How _I_ was raised."

Chloe leaned heavily on her chair.

"I didn't _want_ a father. I already fucking had one, the best one, and I am _not_ accepting replacements. All I ever wanted from you was respect and distance. I _never_ got it. You even set up secret cameras throughout the house!"

David looked down, expression more morose then angry now. "Never showed it either. If you want respect you should…..you should show it."

"I was a teenager and you were the dude banging my mum. Of _course_ I had a problem with you. You didn't have to try and fucking…take over my life. You couldn't have just…put up with it and let me get it out of my system? I was sixteen. I wasn't supposed to be the mature one."

"I thought I could give you a firm hand. To get back on track." David mumbled.

"Well all you ever gave me was something to rebel against."

David sighed, rubbing red eyes. "I know I have made mistakes, Chloe but I _do_ love you, even if –"

"No."

Everyone in the room looked at her in confusion, her interruption of David's confession clearly an even bigger offense then trying to throw furniture. She had no choice but to continue.

"You don't love me. That isn't some sort of…..fucking failing. You would have to be some sort of fucking masochist to, with the way we act to each other. It's okay to have a problem with me…..hell _I_ don't even love me. Fuck even my own mother barely manages to."

Joyce looked up, horrified surprise on her face and a denial on her lips but now that Chloe had started she couldn't stop.

"But even you have enough of a heart to know how fucked up it is to hate your girlfriend's daughter, so you invent this _idea._ A fake me, a Chloe you _can_ love. One who isn't such a "fucking punk". Then you expect me to be her, treat me as if I am, and get pissed off when I don't follow the fucking script. Well, too fucking bad. This is the Chloe you get. Leave it or leave it."

Once Chloe was done, no one was wiling to fill the silence that remained. It stretched on, scars torn open and three people's hearts breaking. Until finally the therapist looked up, smiled, and said.

"I am afraid that that is all we have time for."

For the first time the whole session, Chloe and David agreed on something. Both of them wanted to punch the man in the face.

* * *

Chloe fell back onto her bed, too keyed up and raw to go to Max's as she had so many times lately. Tonight was gonna be a solo night.

"It really went that bad?" Max asked quietly.

"Full _Springer_ in less than 20."

"I'm sorry, Chlo."

The photographer was safely swaddled, blankets up to her chin and her head sinking deep into her pillow. Chloe smiled over at her adorable girlfriend, grateful for the image after her shitty day.

"It's okay, Max. It was worth a shot, and I needed the push. Maybe…maybe I also needed to get some of that out." Years of pent up emotions that had been boiling under the surface spilling out. Like lancing a boil. Or taking an epic megashit after way the fuck too much Taco Bell.

She hadn't let everything out, of course. Some pains were too precious to be let go of. So big a part of who she was now that releasing them would be to tear a down a foundation she had already built upon, for good or ill.

Like the gnawing emptiness she had felt after sneaking back into a home she had run away from only to find that, in her absence, her mother was happy for the first time in years. The realization that _she_ was the thing standing between her mother and happiness stealing the fire from her eyes and the strength from her limbs as she sat on the stairs and listened.

Or the first time David hit her, a year later. This was _it._ The line that could _not_ be crossed. _This_ would be enough. This would be the end of the hostile takeover of her home. She had been right, in a way. It _had_ been the end, just not how she had expected. She had looked to her mother, blood on her lip and triumph in her eyes. Only for Mrs. Madsen to avert her eyes. The annexation of the Price household had finally come to an end, in decisive victory for the invading forces.

Max smiled at her, warm and gentle. And it wasn't as if all that ceased to matter, it had left it's mark on her, shaped her for the rest of her life. But in the curve of those lips she loved so very much, there was a peace to finally be found. The pains of her past weren't so heavy a burden to bear, now that she had a future.

Chloe slipped into sleep, thinking of the girl whose return had given her a reason to get up in the morning. She dreamed strange dreams, of red wine spilled onto a white carpet slowly forming into the shape of a heart. People tried to scrub it out, one after another, but the stain stubbornly remained.

She dreamed of storms, of a light too bright to be snuffed out no matter how dark the room, of shapeless shifting male figures each more menacing then the last. She dreamed of the Lighthouse, beautiful and strong, weathering whatever came.

Finally, she dreamed of Rachel. Her angel, garbed in denim and plaid, golden mane the only halo she needed. Rachel held her, as gently and insistently as the fog of sleep. Chloe snuggled deep into her arms and delighted in her warmth. Rachel was saying something, but somehow it wasn't as important as the feel of her body.

The model stroked her hair and leaned down, bringing her lips right to Chloe's ear in an attempt to be heard. Chloe smiled, curling her body around the other girl happily and moving her head closer to feel the press of those lips one more time.

"Wow," Rachel hummed. "A girl who loves you more then anything and you are still desperate to snuggle up to someone else. Guess we have more in common than I thought!"

Chloe lashed out, rage and shame mingling in a burst of motion, and the gentle dream of Rachel disappeared like morning fog chased away by the sun.

The first thing she saw as she bolted up in bed was the thin man in tattered clothes standing over Max's bed, the gun in his hand pointed down at the sleeping time traveler.


	11. Lost

The shitty, run down old church may have been the best Arcadia Bay had to offer, but it still wasn't nearly good enough. Chloe knew that nothing would be, but the world could at least put in some fucking effort.

The church wasn't even big enough to fit everyone. And that was another thing. Way too many fucking people. That was just w _rong._ The only time Max could stand a crowd was when she could escape to its edges and watch it from the sidelines. She wouldn't have wanted this great throng of people, most of whom didn't even know her.

Chloe did her best to ignore them. It was a struggle not to turn and snarl at every pretender, let loose all of her viciousness and impotent rage. But Max wouldn't have wanted that either. Max would have wanted her to be _better_. So Chloe kept her eyes forward.

Fixed on the coffin displayed so prominently.

She was supposed to help carry it out, soon. Another thing that was wrong. She should be carrying it on her own. Max was _hers,_ after all. It was stupidly selfish, so many other people loved Max. But she had had so little fucking _time_ with her heart back in her body. It wasn't fair to have it carried away and put in the ground so soon.

People had tried to talk to her. Chloe ignored them. None of them mattered. None of them were her.

As the priest droned on, Chloe stood. Crossed the room as his voice faltered and came to an awkward end. Good. Max would have made fun of that pompous asshole's stupid turkey neck.

There was supposed to be a part of the ceremony set aside for this, even a specific order for people to do it in. As Chloe stood by Max's coffin, she found she didn't give a single shit.

Next to her, a giant picture of Max's face smiled down at the room. In a room filled with unacceptable _wrong_ ness that was worst of all. All the goddamn selfies Max took and this was the picture they went with? It wasn't even Max's work!

It utterly failed to capture her warmth, her beauty. Her bright wit and gentle heart. Only Max's incredible talent could have.

"Jesus, talk about morbid." Rachel muttered quietly next to her.

Chloe didn't bother to respond.

The model took two steps forward and took hold of the coffin as Chloe voiced a wordless objection, utterly unwilling to see the ruin a madman's rage had made of her beloved.

Her cry was ignored, the other girl throwing back the lid of the coffin without hesitation. Chloe tried to look away, but found her sight transfixed. Not with the expected horror, but with the wonder unfolding before her.

Disbelieving eyes widened at the sight of a kaleidoscope of butterflies exploding out of the grim wooden box. They flew around her, unbearably bright and beautifully blue, an unending stream of life where she had expected to see only death. An instant later, a new colour was added to the mix. For every blue butterfly that flew past there was another, equally radiant and impossibly pink.

The butterflies swirled and danced around them, the two girls at the eye of a glittering storm of fluttering wings.

Rachel Amber smiled, golden mane glowing, and whispered.

"Wake up."

Chloe wheezed a breath past immobile lips and into frozen lungs. She still sat on her bed in the hospital, the gun pointed at Max's sleeping form jerking around erratically, the tattered rags the would-be assassin wore making him seem even more unstable.

"I have to." He muttered in a shaky, frantic voice. One moment slow and halting, the next tumbling forward in a stammering rush.

"Have to have to have to. I don't…it's not that I w-want to. It's just…I, I showed you right? Again and again. Last night most of all. Too much, you are too much. Time itself…..it's too much. He will take it. It's what he does, what he is. Take it all, take everything. I saw, when I crept inside. Hunger is all he is, all he has. Nothing will be enough, not…..not ever. And you can't stop him, none of us can. But he can't, he can't, he can't can't can't. This is the only way to stop him, only way only way. He can't take what isn't there. You have to…have to go. I…I have to save the world!"

His voice gained strength at last, final few words transitioning to a defiant shout. His hand calmed, gun still and steady as it was levelled at Max Caulfield's unconscious body. His finger curled on the trigger and at last whatever fog had held Chloe vanished in an instant.

Grabbing the first thing she could, Chloe threw the stupid stuffed novelty bulldog Frank had given her as a joke at the lunatic. It was a particularly pathetic projectile, but her opponent was far from being a trained gunman. All she needed it to do was distract him, and the stupid toy did it's job. The unstable man jerked wildly to the side in shock just as he pulled the trigger, gun roaring and bullet cracking into Max's bed.

The failed assassin gaped at Chloe in shock.

"You! You can't….you should be _gone_ now! Floating away like all the rest, no one sees no one knows! How did you get out? _How are you awake?!_ "

Chloe didn't get a chance to respond. The madmen threw up a hand and hissed, deranged voice strangely gentle.

" _Dream_."

Max's coffin pressed down on her shoulder, a burden heavier then any she had ever expected to bear. The other pallbearers didn't seem to mitigate the weight at all. Chloe lurched forward, barely able to lift her feet and gritting her teeth against the pressure. Blinking away tears, Chloe focused on putting one foot in front of the next. The idea of failing her once more, of dropping that burden, was enough for her to push through any pain. Any discomfort.

The people around her were strange. A few were familiar, Max's family her Blackwell peeps and the few Seattle friends she had described to Chloe, but most were somehow generic. Vague figures in dull suits, with blank faces, formless and shifting.

More the _idea_ of mourners then specific individuals.

The wrongness of it pricked at her, an itch she couldn't scratch that grew with each step. But what was there to _do_? She couldn't stop. Not now. Max was counting on her.

It wouldn't bring her back, but Chloe could give her a dignified farewell. It was all she had left. All she could give her dead girlfriend.

And yet….

The suspicion grew. Step after step, minute after minute. Like acid eating it's way through her body. Vicious. Relentless.

Chloe focused on the pain instead. The weight on her shoulder, the burning of her eyes. The nails of her other hand, digging into her palm hard enough that Chloe had left drops of blood scattered along her path. The complete emptiness she had fallen into, with Max dead.

 _This_ was right. This was how life was. It only ever gave you something worth having in order to see you break when it was taken away. There was no way she could ever hope to hold onto something as fulfilling as Max Caulfield. No way the world would let up long enough to actually let her be happy.

And yet…

It still seemed _wrong_. Somehow. Even with the familiarity of the pain she had come to expect from the world, something was off. Chloe probed at that feeling, testing it. Reaching as deep into herself as she could.

What she found was faith.

Not in any vaunted higher power, but in something far closer to home. Maxine Caulfield had broken reality to be by her side. Chloe's partner in time would not have allowed this grim ending. Not for an instant. Life never hesitated to kick Chloe in the teeth, but ever since Max's return there was someone kicking back. And she wasn't letting anything beat her any time soon. Time after time Max Caulfield had stared death in the face. Time after time, death had known better then to try it's luck and chosen to back off.

Chloe stopped walking.

She had faith. Faith that Max was still out there, that this fucking lie Chloe was carrying around would not stand. And faith that, even if she was wrong, Max would forgive. The way she always did.

Chloe stepped aside, the pallbearers vanishing into mist and the coffin falling to the ground with a heavy thud. The coffin's lid somehow bore a padlock, thick heavy metal keeping her away from her objective. So Chloe attacked the lid instead, hands slamming down with bruising force. Scrabbling, tearing and clawing at the hard wood.

As Chloe's hand splayed out from her latest attempt a smashing her way through, a fire axe slammed down between her fingers and Chloe jerked back in shock, stumbling back onto her ass.

"I'm sure you would get through eventually," Rachel said with a wink from where she now stood on the coffin. "But this might be a touch quicker."

It was so very _Rachel_ Chloe thought, reminded once more of why she had loved the girl. She had a way of enhancing whatever you felt, turning contentment into bliss, anger into fury. Then she would embrace it and run with it. If you put a streak of cheap blue kiddie dye in your hair, she would show up one day with a full container of salon quality dye in a far more vibrant shade. And a challenging twinkle in her eye. If you were getting your rage on with some wood, she would show up with a goddamn axe.

Rachel pulled the axe back and slammed it down even harder. Then again, and again, grunting with effort each time. The casket was good, solid wood. But, as everything did, it ultimately gave way to Rachel.

As a kaleidoscope of butterflies swarmed out of the torn wood and around her, a swirling mass of blue and pink, she looked down at Chloe.

Rachel Amber smiled, golden mane glowing, and whispered.

"Wake up."

Chloe blinked her eyes as reality reasserted itself. She was sitting up in bed while the distracted gunman's hand turned back to Max. His hand raising and finger curling around the trigger, the young time traveller somehow having slumbered through a gunshot narrowly missing at close range.

Three years ago Chloe had failed, standing by on the sidelines as the light which had only just started to brighten her life was almost snuffed out by Damon Merrick's knife. Only Frank's mercy giving her an opportunity to spirit Rachel away.

More recently Chloe had hesitated, the fear of Nathan's gun holding back her rage as she realized that, no matter whatever edgy crap she scrawled across the walls, she very much wanted to live. Only Max's powers giving her the distraction she needed to strike back.

As the gun once more threatened Max's life, Chloe did not pause. Did not hesitate.

Chloe threw herself across the room with a speed which would have left her disappointed PE teacher's weeping, crashing into the armed man in a tackle which rattled her teeth. She wasn't the bulkiest girl, but she was at least _tall_ , and her target was even thinner then her, gaunt and half starved. They went down together in a tangle of limbs, gun roaring time after time as he pulled the trigger frantically, sending bullets into wall, ceiling and even floor.

There were no shouts of inquiry, no frantic rush of nurses and security. Like Max, the hospital slept calmly while Chloe struggled and fought for their lives.

Chloe wound up on top, pinning him with her weight, but any victory she felt was short lived. She had to jerk wildly to avoid the gun he was still waving and almost lost her position entirely. Reaching out with her left hand, she grabbed the wrist of his gun hand and pinned it against the floor. His other hand was scrabbling at her, trying to push her off and after failing that trying to claw at her throat. She grabbed that hand with her right, pushing it down so that she had him completely pinned.

With both her hands holding him down, she had Max's would-be killer helpless before her but no way to tear at him, to give him what he deserved. Unless…

She pulled her head back before snapping it forward as fast as she could, slamming her forehead into her opponent's with enough force that she felt it in her goddamn ankles. As the headbutt connected all she could see were his eyes. Up close they were enormous, but still containing precious little sanity. She found herself falling forward, as darkness swirled around her and reality fell away until she stood on light, short grass.

Row after row of gravestones surrounded her, stretching onwards out of sight in every direction. Real graveyards had something to break up the monotony. A tree, a fountain, a big ass wanna be mausoleum slapped together for some dickhead who couldn't conceive of generosity even once they were dead and could never enjoy their money again.

But this latest dream didn't bother with such details.

Chloe knew what she would find when she looked down. The simple headstone before her, _**Maxine Caulfield**_ carved into it.

"Fucker knows how to stick to a theme, I will give him that." Rachel said, handing her a shovel.

"So do you." Chloe said, raising her shovel and shoving it deep into the freshly dug grave.

"Lies. I am fickle and flighty. Like the wind. Or a hobo. Or a cat. Windy hobo cat, that's me." Rachel hefted a second shovel, sinking it just as deep as Chloe's while the punk raised an eyebrow at her actions.

"Hey, _she_ helped you dig _me_ up, remember? Only fair I return the favour." There was a world of sadness in Rachel's quiet smile which Chloe couldn't bear to see. Nothing so beautiful should look so desolate.

Chloe yanked her shovel out, tearing a hunk of dirt free and dumping it. Rachel mirrored her action, if less vigorously.

They dug in silence, so much to say that there was nowhere to begin. Shovels tearing at the cold earth the only sound in the empty graveyard. Soon Chloe was sweating, even in her thin and tattered tank top. It was worth it, though, with each clump of dirt excavated she was that much closer to Max.

Chloe raised her shovel…..

…..and slammed her right fist down into his face once more.

Rachel raised hers….

….and Chloe's left fist smashed down this time.

Chloe drew back her hand for another punch…..

….and sank her shovel into rich brown earth.

Dream and reality intermingled. There was only the work in front of her, shovels rising and falling as the grave was excavated, fists pummelling down one after another as she gave the assassin what he deserved.

Each moment seemed to take her closer to reality. The flashes of his broken, bleeding face, getting longer and more frequent. Chloe looked at her shovel, frowning at the chipped and broken blade, and all of a sudden she was looking at her hand, skin torn and knuckles bleeding, fingers bent at impossible angles.

She pushed aside the pain, the worry. She and Max had come so fucking close to that happy ending. She wasn't letting anyone take that away, no matter how many fucking literal nightmares they threw at her.

She and Rachel raised their shovels with a yell, striking down as hard as they could to dig away the last of the dirt blocking her.

One last time, the butterflies exploded around them, swirling out of the open grave. Almost all pink, now.

Rachel Amber smiled, golden mane glowing, and whispered.

"Wake-"

"-Yeah, babe, I get it. I'm awake." Chloe interrupted.

Rachel threw back her head and laughed, half way between the practiced tittering of her father's high society friends and the full-bodied belly laugh of the fattest man in the bar. Chloe's heart ached to hear it.

She hadn't known how much she had missed that laugh. Had needed to hear it again. Her eyes teared up with the sudden realization that every step she had taken to escape this dream and return to Max had been a step away from this world where Rachel was here beside her, beautiful and vibrant.

Rachel smiled again, reaching forward to brush a tear from Chloe's cheek.

"Hey now, none of that. You still have a life to live – go live it. And be happy enough for the both of us!"

Smiling through the tears, Chloe nodded. The kaleidoscope of butterflies thickened, one final burst of light and life, until it was all she could see. And all of a sudden she was straddling a man she had beaten unconscious in a hospital room.

Her left hand ached, throbs of pain that had a physical presence, like a snake tunnelling it's way under her skin from her hand to her wrist. Her right hand was far more worrying. From that she felt _nothing._ No pain, no warmth, no sensation at all. The whole hand was a dull grey block of nothing, to her senses. As If all the nerves there had gone on strike to protest harsh working conditions.

But, however bad her hands were, they had nothing on the horror they had wrought. The only word that could apply to her attacker would be _mangled._ And even then that would be too light a description.

The pool of blood under his head had spread so far that her knees were soaked, even where she sat around his navel. His eyes were glassy and bloodshot, or rather his _eye_ was glassy and bloodshot. The other one couldn't really be called an eye anymore, more a spattered lump of milky white and bloody red material. His nose was crushed almost flat, blood smearing down from both nostrils and over his mouth, which hadn't needed any help getting blood everywhere, split lips dribbling thick red liquid over broken teeth and in the spaces where missing ones should be. Far more blood was coming from the severed stump of his tongue, unable to survive the misfortune of being between bottom teeth and top when she had hit his jaw. Thankfully he had spat the severed muscle out, rather than choke on it, and now it sat beside him. As wet and red as the long tears her assault had torn in the skin of his head, flesh ripped from muscle. Worst of all though was his skull, caved in in a way no skull should be. With every ragged breath she heaved in from her position on top of him his body moved in response, and with every jerk of transmitted motion his head moved too. As it did parts of his skull….. _flowed._ Moving freely where there should only be rigid firmness.

It would have been such a mercy to blame the dream, to label this the act of her body while her mind had been elsewhere, but Chloe knew better. Looking down at the man she had brutalized, Chloe knew that the horror she felt was a selfish thing, born of shock at the fact that she could do this to a person, a need to deny that such monstrosity could be a part of her. She knew because as she looked at the place inside where regret and pity should be she found only a grim satisfaction at having done this to the man who would kill Max Caulfield.

Chloe tried to stand, wanting to be as far from him as possible but found her body rigid, moving jerkily. It wasn't until gentle hands took her by the shoulder to help her away that she noticed Max was awake, voice reassuring and full of love.

Chloe looked to her girlfriend, mouth opening with a hundred explanations all crowding to get out at once, only to be silenced by an embrace, Max not needing the slightest explanation in the face of Chloe's pain.

She just held her girlfriend.

Slowly, making no sound, a doe wandered through the hospital halls. Away from the room where two girls cradled each other over a comatose man. She displayed none of the panic and uncertainty one would expect of a wild animal trapped in a human building, and as the hospital awoke around her none of the staff or patients seemed to see the doe even though she wandered in plain sight.


	12. Resolve

"No, I know it doesn't make much sense but the first shots didn't wake me up. I didn't wake up until Chloe was….uhm…..."

"Dealing with the intruder?"

Officer Berry's face was haggard, lined with exhaustion. What little hair remained on his head gone grey. It was odd, Max had been trapped in time that was now lost to the world, but Anderson Berry was the one who looked like he had aged a decade in a month.

The hospital waiting room was bland and sterile, with uncomfortable chairs and a few tables bearing magazines. The police had claimed it as an improvised "interview room", which Max suggested must be the polite version of an interrogation room. For when you beat someone into a coma, but in self-defence.

Max reached over to Chloe beside her, hesitating at the sight of her girlfriends broken hand before putting her hand on Chloe's knee instead. The injured punk smiled at her, settling her other hand over Max's and squeezing as hard as she could. _That_ hand only had two broken fingers.

"Alright, Chloe, anything else you want to add to your earlier statement?"

Chloe frowned. Law Enforcement had displayed something of an attitude switch towards her, in recent days. From troublemaking delinquent to one of the victims of a series of horrific crimes enabled by their corruption. Though some had held on to their anger at her, finding it easier to bear their failures when they could look down on "that punk", most had tried to move on. They had been respectfully professional, when questioning her over the Prescott case.

Chloe wasn't feeling so forgiving. They would always be the assholes who failed Rachel, to her.

She had told them everything that had happened in the real world, with no mention of her assailant having some sort of sleep or dream powers. Berry had seemed suspicious, some instinct cluing him in that she was holding back. Chloe wasn't particularly worried. If he had any follow through on those instincts she wouldn't be in the hospital with six fingers and one hand broken, an injured girlfriend and a dead best friend.

"Nope."

Officer Berry nodded.

"Alright then. As…..odd as it is that Max wasn't woken by the gunfire, it is consistent with other reports. The whole damn hospital; security, all the nurses and doctors on duty, _everyone_ not only fell asleep but managed to _stay_ asleep through a shooting. Maybe…maybe some kind of gas leak? Or…"

He sighed, bringing his hand up to rub at a forehead expanded by a receding hair line. He left, without another word.

"I feel kinda bad." Max confessed. "He just wants to help and we have pieces of the puzzle that we are holding back."

Chloe rolled her eyes. "Better "kinda bad" than "kinda locked up in the psych ward". We told him everything relevant to….heh, to _the laws of man_." The last few words were delivered in the kind of overly dramatic tone that people used shortly before letting out a "Muahahaha!"

"Arcadia Bay's cops can't even the handle the drug dealers and rapists they were trained to. Time travel and dream wizards would just make them shit themselves with terror, if we could ever convince them of it." Chloe continued.

Max nodded. "Yeah I…..I know. It would just…it would be nice to have help. Just hand over the problems to someone else and focus on being us."

"I get dat, Maximus. Wanna just…spend the next year blazing and making out with you. But…..this shit was _targeted._ We gonna need to get our hero on all over again."

Max closed her eyes and sighed, leaning back in her chair. Unable to hold her girlfriend's hand, Chloe bumped her shoulder against Max's instead. The photographer smiled and leaned against her, accepting the scant comfort Chloe could offer.

* * *

Max ran her hand through Chloe's hair, some of the tension leaving her girlfriend's face as she smiled in her sleep, head cradled on Max's lap. Even sitting as far back on the bed as Max could, Chloe had to curl up pretty tight to fit. She had grumbled about the position until she had fallen asleep, but without much heat. Chloe didn't have much fight left in her, after everything that had happened. She had just wanted to curl up with Max. Or on Max.

Continuing her caress, Max chewed on her bottom lip as she looked down at her battered girlfriend. It had taken entirely too long after Berry left for the hospital staff to come for them and Max and Chloe got their room back, now complete with a disinfectant smell even more overwhelming than the rest of the hospital.

Why the hospital put them back in a room which was now a crime scene complete with seven bullet holes, Max had no idea. Surely the hospital couldn't be _that_ low on rooms? After all, they had one to spare for the man Chloe had just beaten into a coma.

As far as Max was concerned a rotting compost heap was too good for the man who had put Chloe through so much, let alone a nice new hospital room.

But after the attack and following drama, Chloe had simply been to worn out for Max to make much of an issue of getting their old room. The vibrant energy that had always characterized Chloe - whether manifesting as overwhelming affection, playful mischievousness or burning anger - had been absent. Her eyes were dull and glassy, voice empty, tired face somehow naked without her trademark grin or angry scowl. Some combination of the adrenaline crash, unprecedented stress of fighting someone seemingly capable of violating her mind, horrible shock of facing down an armed gunman, and the painkillers given to her for her injuries had taken the wind out of her sails.

Max moved on from playing with Chloe's hair, moving her hand down to her girlfriend's cheek in a gentle caress. Enjoying the warmth, the softness of her skin. Precious few residents of Arcadia Bay would expect such softness from its prickliest resident. Only Max actually got to feel it.

Chloe wouldn't need her cactus impersonation if this goddamn town would let up for five fucking minutes.

Max hadn't been back long before Arcadia Bay had started targeting people she cared about, with Kate being drugged abducted and tortured where she should have been safe. And by a teacher of all things. Then…..the fateful bathroom encounter. Max had watched as a classmate murdered a girl. From there, life had been an unceasing barrage. Being assaulted by Nathan in the parking lot, seeing how completely Chloe's life had fallen apart in her absence, being confronted with David's violent authoritarianism.

The train tracks, hearing her best friend scream in utter terror over and over as she scrabbled to find a way to fix it. Watching Kate leap, pushed far beyond what she could endure by being buried in the most small minded and petty of cruelties at her most vulnerable. Immediately afterwards, being caught in her oldest nightmare with the stakes ratcheted up impossibly high – figure out the exact right thing to say or watch a friend die. One wrong word carrying lethal consequences, when Max hadn't had a single conversation in her life that she hadn't managed to fuck up in one way or another. By some miracle, she had gotten through it. Led Kate off that ledge and to the qualified help she deserved.

Only for the next day to hold even worse horrors. The realisation of just how completely Wells had put students at risk for Prescott money. The agony on Chloe's face at the betrayal of the one person who had yet to let her down. The disorientation at finding herself in a new timeline of her own making, knowing anything could be different but not knowing what, a world both intimately familiar and utterly alien. Her triumph at saving William turning to crushing despair as she saw the chair and discovered what it had cost.

Chloe's request.

Leading the sweetest man in the world to his death just to undo her mistake. The dissonance of knowingly destroying Chloe in order to save her.

Frank's knife and Pompidou's teeth, Chloe escalating to murder to save her from both. Having to rewind over and over to find a way to around Frank's ego, just to avoid more bloodshed. The pain of her nails breaking as she clawed at Rachel's shallow grave, followed immediately by the stench of six months' worth of abandoned rotting. Chloe's broken weeping.

What kind of world did that?

Chloe's cold rage as she hunted Nathan, an all-consuming hatred which could only be sated with blood dominating the most loving person Max had ever met. The thunder and lightning of the gunshot, Chloe's hunt ending in the wrong person's death.

Then the prick in her neck and….pain. Disorientation and confusion turning into terrified realisation. Harsh white light and flash flash flash of the camera, her every weakness and vulnerability not only on display but delighted in as she was torn down. The betrayal of being tormented by her idol, reduced to a prop for his sick games. Desecration.

 _Violation._

Finally, finally escaping and having it all. Jefferson and Nathan locked up, justice for Kate and Rachel, her every professional and artistic ambition reached as her photography was the toast of a gallery, the central display in a contest dedicated to showing up and coming young artists. Most celebrated, even among the best of her generation. Her sweet Chloe, safe and secure in Arcadia Bay, life back on track. Only for it all to be stolen away by _that motherfucking storm_. So she had given it all up, San Fran, beautiful gallery, her art. She hadn't hesitated for a second, had hated every interruption on her path to sacrifice it all for Chloe, but it had still _hurt_ to do so.

Even more so when her nobility had led her right back to the monsters clutches. The way he had _looked_ at her. A profane melding of envy, lust and hatred. Only mattering because of the pain and degradation he could extract from her. Trying every trick and idea she could think of. All she could do, everything she had. And it not being enough. The complete and utter helplessness of coming up short, knowing her story was to end at a pervert's whim.

Only to be saved by a man she had hated, whose life she had almost destroyed. Answering his heroism by breaking his heart one last time. Another gunshot, this one bringing not fear or concern but a cold satisfaction. Only disturbed by not being disturbed, the creeping certainty that Jefferson had _taken_ something from her. Something she had never properly valued and now would never get back.

Not even a second to process all that. Only a tiny victory, Jefferson's depraved trophy recovered and turned into a talisman. A reminder of what she was fighting for, what made all that suffering worth it. Chloe's necklace on her shoulders, around her neck. Her presence giving Max the strength to carry forward. A tiny protection against the storm.

Against the sight of friend after friend dying in the chaotic madness. Howling wind and lashing rain, deadly debris thrown about with ease. The Two Whales, as sacred a part of her childhood as anything could be, aflame. A tiny protection against it all. But enough.

It had got her to the photo, to her sweet Chloe, even as her mind broke under the strain and nightmares consumed her.

And her reward for all that? For persevering through all the pain and terror Arcadia Bay could concoct? The most fucked up dilemma the world had ever seen. She could have her Chloe. At the cost of everything else. A happy life built on a foundation of death and destruction. A river of blood to wade through to get to her happy ending.

So she had done _the right thing._ Been _responsible._

Torn out her heart for a world that didn't fucking care.

She had tried one last desperate roll of the dice, at the very end. Tried to swap out, take Chloe's place. Die for Arcadia Bay. Lay bleeding out in her love's arms, thinking she had failed.

And finally, finally _finally_ _**finally**_ , the peace she had fought, sacrificed, bled and died for was hers. Burdened by scars of every sort, tried and tormented. Down one rib and a great deal of energy. But she had the light in Chloe's eyes, those smirking lips against hers. Kate's faith, Dana's support, Warren's friendship, her parent's love. Enough and so much more than enough.

But now _this._

Max could feel the noose tightening. Fate, god, the universe or just some random collection of assholes conspiring to take it all. Steal away the happy ending she had _fucking earned._

No.

Not this time. She wasn't the same girl who had dreamed of a storm while a psychopath leered at her. If the world was going to try to take away what was hers she was going to take it right the fuck back.

She had _power._ And she was done being afraid of it. She would do whatever she needed to, to protect the love she had found and the life she had won.

Whatever it took.

Whatever the consequences.

Max's left hand trembled from the strength with which it was clenched. It was any world that dared take Chloe away from her that needed to be afraid.

* * *

Chloe brought a hand up to her head to comb her hair back into place, wincing as her broken fingers made contact. All fucking day she had been making that mistake. It was almost enough to make a girl regret beating a fucker into a coma. Almost.

Still, it wasn't without it's advantages. Every time her injured hands held her back, Max had hurried to help her. As irritating and humiliating as helplessness was for the headstrong punk, knowing she could rely on Max to take care of her was deeply comforting. A bit too comforting, really. Lying back while a gorgeous girl fed her was fucking _indulgent_. Just needed to make it grapes Max was feeding her, really. And maybe add a few veiled dancers.

Shit, maybe Steph could set something up? She was bound to know some people…

Definitely a topic to reconsider another day. Chloe forced her mind away from her newfound fantasy and back to her considerably less pleasant reality.

Just in time to watch David pull into the hospital carpark.

His obnoxious face was set in an obnoxious frown behind obnoxious sunglasses as he sat in his obnoxious car. Chloe grit her teeth against the pain of her clenched hands and did her best to relax. He had been oddly polite, on the phone. He had actually _asked_ if they could go somewhere to talk. Not told, ordered, barked or yelled. _Asked._ This was an unprecedented incident in the recorded history of _David Madsen, Stepdouch from Beyond._

He pulled up beside her and signalled for her to get in. She offered him a half-hearted wave. Part greeting, part sarcastic reminder that she couldn't manage the car door handle. A blushing David hurried out of the car and around to the passenger side door, opening it for her in a display of chivalry she couldn't help think of as overcompensating for his faux pas. Chloe managed to avoid rolling her eyes as she got in, waving off his help as she struggled with the seat belt. He had been settled into his seat for a while, waiting with an uncharacteristic patience, by the time she got herself buckled in and he could pull out of the parking lot.

"Not that I don't like mystery rides with people I hate or anything, but I have had a hella shitty month and I'm not really in the mood for any more surprises. So…..mind telling me where the fuck we are going?"

David was silent for a while as he drove, taking so long to consider his answer to such a simple question that she started to worry.

"We have a lot to talk about, and I know _I_ at least have a lot to apologise for-"

"Dude, can we fucking _not_? I am way too tired for a repeat of our Springer re-enactment-"

"Chloe, can you please let me finish?"

His voice was tense with the effort of holding back his anger, but almost as tired as hers. Between the cops crawling all over Blackwell, dealing with scared or angry parents and students and being there for Joyce while Chloe fell from the frying pan into several successively worse fires, David had to be one busy little fascist.

"All right."

David nodded gratefully.

"We have a lot to talk about, and I know _I_ at least have a lot to apologise for." He repeated. "But none of that matters right now. Right now…Of all my regrets, the worst is the _way_ I tried to protect students. I was so focused on protecting people that I stopped treating them like _people_."

They were heading into what passed as the wealthy part of town. Simple suburban neighbourhoods which wouldn't impress in a real town, but with Arcadia Bay's standards in as steep a decline as the rest of it, victory was claimed by default. The next right turn would take them to the nicest part of the nice part of town. To the house of Arcadia Bay's DA. The Amber household. Chloe didn't realize how tense she had gotten until David turned left instead.

"It's so much easier to reduce people, to an objective, to a list of traits or variables, to a problem to be solved. I tried to protect people, protect _you_ , by holding myself apart. Disconnecting. Never been any good at working with a team."

David parked across from a short, long, solidly built building. Unlike most buildings in the tiny town she had spent her entire life in, Chloe couldn't immediately place it.

"It…..frustrated me, the way you and everyone else refused to just play along. Didn't you realize how much easier it would be to protect you if you would stop wandering around town? Why couldn't the students just shut up and accept the cameras? It was all for your own good."

Chloe managed to hold herself back while he shook his head and sighed.

"I was limiting people, holding them back and tearing them down. Treating them like children to be talked down to. All it did was guarantee no one came to me for help when they needed it. If Kate had just been able to _trust_ me…"

It took almost a minute for David to collect himself this time, jaw clenched and eyes screwed shut.

"I never realized I should have been building people up instead. Making them _feel_ safe and protected. Reaching out, trusting people so they would trust me. I was so focused on protecting you I never even considered teaching you how to protect yourself."

David reached across her to the glove box, pulling the latch then leaning back while it opened. Chloe's eyes widened.

"You aren't the kind of person who can sit back while someone else protects you. Maybe that is because of how things went with your father, waiting for him to come back and instead losing him forever. I can't claim to understand that pain. Maybe it is just who you are, the way you always would have turned out. Either way, this is what I should have done from the beginning."

Chloe reached out hesitantly, an unbroken finger coming to rest on the dark metal.

"You never should have needed to steal it. There is some paperwork to do before it is official, but the gun is yours. So long as you let me teach you how to use it."

 _That_ was what the building they were parked in front of was. Arcadia Bay's one and only shooting range.

"Maybe you were right, in therapy, when you said violence is all I have. But if it is…..maybe you can make use of it. "

"Dude." Chloe held up her hands. "I can't exactly pull the trigger. And I don't even want to imagine what the recoil would feel like."

David gave her one of the only genuine smiles she had ever seen on his face.

"There is a lot to cover before you start shooting. Gun safety, firing posture, legal stuff."

Learning to shoot with David would be a lot less fun than with Max, Chloe could tell. But she probably wouldn't need time traveller assistance to hit her target at the end of it. And she was much less likely to shoot herself in the tit with a ricochet.

Chloe stared down at the gun.

She fucking hated David. Day after day of degrading insults, rude and hostile behaviour. Until the hate and bitterness was a weight she carried every day. Watching him claim her home, take her mother, try to replace her dad. The smack of his hand against her face, entire world lurching with the impact. Constant fear becoming just another part of her shitty life.

Oh yes, she fucking hated David Madsen. Taking lessons from him would be beyond humiliating.

But when it had really mattered, when Max had been more scared and afraid then in her entire life, seconds from a degrading death for a sadists satisfaction, it had been David kicking down the door and saving her. While Chloe lay dead on the ground. And then again in the bathroom, Max had taken a bullet for her and there had been nothing she could do to protect her. Again, David saved Max where Chloe failed. Last night Chloe had finally managed to protect her, but only just, and at a serious cost.

Couldn't protect Rachel, could only protect Max one of the three times she needed it.

The only thing more degrading then swallowing her hatred and being David's student would be failing again, not doing everything she could to shield her girlfriend from an increasingly brutal world. If Max got hurt because Chloe was too damn proud to suck it up and learn from David…..no, fucking _no._ She would protect Max.

Whatever it took.

Whatever it cost her.

Chloe reached out and took the gun. It was the next asshole that tried to hurt Max that needed to be afraid.


End file.
